Comment: social media copycats!

A little while ago, while searching Instagram for some mentions of a client, I thought I was seeing double. After scrolling past countless pictures of cats, fancy (and not so fancy) dinners, and Kim Kardashian, I came across a beach scene. Yup, clearly our client’s beach in the Pacific Ocean. Wait! There was another, identical, beach, but posted from another account. When’s a beautiful beach not a beautiful beach? Simple, when it’s a copyrighted picture posted by an account that pretends to be you. In this case, the pictures were the same, but the second one had been posted by an account with a username that seemed confusingly similar to our client’s name.

My curiosity was aroused and I clicked on the username to view the other pictures posted by this account and have a look at the bio. Sure enough, most pictures had been taken from the client’s website, Facebook page, or reposted from visitors to the resort. The link in the profile’s bio went to the official website, but the bio text contained a Gmail address for booking inquiries. I took a deep breath, topped up my coffee cup, and went into full on kill mode.

First step: Message the copycat’s account, point out that many of the pictures posted belong to our client, and ask the account admin to contact us within the next 24 hours. Second step: Research. Has the same Gmail address been used for other accounts? What happens if you email it asking for more info or to make a booking? Third step: Preparation and compilation. Screenshots were taken, links were copied, and everything was neatly recorded. Fourth step: Wait.

Dealing with online impostors is annoying and time-consuming, but sadly a part of today’s business life. Over the years, I’ve come across copycat Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, and even fake websites complete with booking engines. Having more than one “you” out there can confuse (potential) guests and visitors, lead to customer complaints, and result in revenue losses.

It pays to be watchful, but where do you start? Easy, it all starts with finding impostor accounts and intellectual property violations. Hence, monitoring is key and you should regularly search the Internet and the various social media platforms for keywords related to your properties.

Keep in mind, though, that not every duplicate picture or video is automatically part of an evil attempt to defraud you — guests and even employees often use visual content from your online platforms when they’re talking about you and that’s usually no problem.

Things get more difficult when others start using your logos and similar assets. Again, doing regular Google picture searches for your logos is probably a good idea.

If you do come across questionable content, it’s important to determine whether you’re dealing with copyright or trademark infringements. In our industry, it’s usually trademark infringements that pop up, i.e. somebody out there using your logos or brand names. The reason it’s important to distinguish between the two is that, on most platforms, each matter needs to be reported differently.

Which brings us to the next issue: filing reports. On the various social media platforms, search the help centres for “reporting trademark infringements”, read the help text carefully, and then follow the instructions to the letter. Precision is key here, because sloppy reports won’t result in the platforms taking the necessary actions. In some cases, this means that you have to resort to offline communication, i.e. write a letter. Also note that most platforms routinely make your information available to the person you’re complaining about, so keep this in mind when completing the various forms, e.g. it’s probably better not to use your main email address, but to use a specifically created email account like “legal@...” for such reports.

Follow up is very important, too. Most reports are initially processed by robots or lower-ranking staff and you may have to report something again, if you haven’t heard back after a week or two.

Whatever you do: Keep it social!

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Social Media & The Law — things to remember

1. Verifying pages and accounts: Although it’s not possible to ask Facebook, Twitter, et. al. to award your accounts and pages “verified” status, they’ll often consider such requests if you can prove that somebody is impersonating your company for commercial reasons. Don’t just file an impersonation complaint, but ask for your account to be verified for your users’ benefit and to avoid similar issues in the future. Who knows, you may be lucky.

2. Prepare ahead of time: Reporting copyright, intellectual property violations, and imposter accounts takes time and effort. Be prepared by having the reporting procedures for the various platforms readily available and the standard letters and emails written and saved as templates.

3. Consider watermarking: It’s time-consuming watermarking pictures you’re posting to your various social networks, but ultimately it’s worthwhile doing so, because it’ll stop others using them to impersonate you. There are many tools available that can help you to quickly put watermarks on your visual content.

4. Do your part: Make sure that your (potential) guests and visitors know about your official social media accounts, by displaying them clearly on your website and, where possible, linking them to your website (e.g. Pinterest can give you a verification link to include in the code of your website).

5. Understand the TOS: It’s much easier to file successful take down reports with the various platforms, if you understand their terms of service and know what is allowed, what isn’t, and how to complain. Take some time to read through the various TOS and bookmark the links to them, so you can find them again in a jiffy.