Threats are part of life, and we learn about them at a young age. Profanity earns soap in the mouth. Bad grades and your phone is taken away. And my childhood demon, failure to eat vegetables means no dessert. The internet has taken threats to another level as some folks have taken to threatening your reputation as a means to an economic end. We are witnessing the weaponization of reputation.

Last week, attorney Michael Avenatti, famous for representing porn star Stormy Daniels, was arrested and accused by federal prosecutors of trying to extort Nike for $25 million. From CNBC:

Prosecutors said Avenatti threatened to hold a press conference accusing the company of being involved in bribing amateur basketball players. Avenatti allegedly timed his threats to coincide with Nike’s quarterly earnings call and the kickoff of the NCAA basketball tournament. According to a criminal complaint, Avenatti offered to refrain from that press conference “only if Nike made a payment of $1.5 million to a client of Avenatti’s in possession of information damaging to Nike … and agreed to ‘retain’ Avenatti and [the co-conspirator] to conduct an ‘internal investigation’ — an investigation that Nike did not request — for which Avenatti and [the co-conspirator] demanded to be paid, at a minimum, between $15 [million] and $25 million.”

So if you believe the allegations, Avenatti was trying to shake down Nike, but the muscle was not that he would turn-in the swoosh company to legal authorities but rather that he would use his media platform to ruin the reputation of the Nike brand. He threatened a virtual whack to the reputational kneecaps, allegedly.Read More