So You've Been Publicly Shamed

In this chapter, Ronson follows up with the reputation management firm working with Lindsey Stone, the caregiver fired for appearing in an offensive photograph that circulated online, to improve Google search results for her name. He meets with a publicist, Leslie Hobbs, and chats with one of the reputation managers, Farukh Rashid. Ronson listens in as Rashid coordinates with Stone to create a new online presence for her based on her interests. Stone finds it difficult to describe herself, but she says she likes, for example, Top 40 music and ice cream. When she makes a joke about her awful job at Wal-Mart, Rashid warns her it could be controversial. Ronson notes that Stone’s edges are being smoothed out in her new online presence and that she is being “reduce[d] to safe banalities” (254) to prevent another shaming.

Ronson interviews reputation manager Michael Fertik again and learns more about how Google’s algorithm works and how Fertik is able to game it to hide unfavorable results. Because it’s a dynamic algorithm, after initially flooding the internet with favorable websites and news stories, the algorithm will “revert” to showing more of the unfavorable stories on the first page of searches, at which point the firm will again push positive stories and social media posts.