How To Find An Influencer’s Problematic Content

Many influencers are capable of all sorts of shady things. Abuse, bigotry, harassment, theft, the list goes on. Sometimes, public content of this nature gets buried under several posts and only gets brought to light years on.

In a previous article (​​https://medium.com/@SnarkyLisa/how-to-expose-someone-on-the-internet-02582d537ec1), I went over how to expose an unpleasant person on the Internet. What I didn’t really go over was the potential use of publicly searchable material to do so. The article you are reading right now will go over just that.

Now, some people may call you a “stalker” for digging such information up. I have had that label thrown at me as well. This is more likely to happen if you scroll through a creator’s profile without narrowing down your search to certain keywords.

Don’t scroll unfiltered for hours. It’s a waste of time. If they post a lot, you might even actually be stalking them if you do so. Instead, try using advanced search.

What Is Advanced Search?

Advanced search typically refers to a function of search engines and social media platforms that allow one to narrow down a search query [1][2]. Instead of just searching a few words or a profile - which could bring thousands of results - advanced search leads you closer to the stuff relevant to what you want.

Advanced search filters can narrow down dates, plaintext words combined with online profiles, popularity levels at times or some combination of them. They are your best friends when it comes to finding information on a potentially problematic influencer.

I’ll be going over some important search keywords in the next few sections.

The Obvious Ones

There are some glaringly clear keywords that will very often lead you to the source of a controversy. Think of words like “drama,” “expose/exposed,” “my experience(s) with [insert],” “accusation(s),” and “allegation(s).” “Document” and “Twitlonger” might also help, as those have been used to expose all sorts of people.

They won’t always lead you to a content creator’s questionable actions. If it doesn’t, there are a few options. Either there’s nothing to expose, the influencer posts about other problematic or allegedly bad people a lot, or both.

If you can’t find anything, don’t discount the possibility of poor behaviour yet. There are different keywords as well which are less blatant.

Terms For Misbehaviour

So searching for generalized controversy keywords doesn’t work? Try more specific ones.

If you want to look up abuse, search “abuser” or “abuser” up. Harassment? Look that up. Same goes for anything else - from plagiarism to bigotry and theft. Just search what you specifically want to find (if there is any).

Now, this is somewhat harder than the first strategy. I’ve found these types of keywords lead me to standard news articles and infographics just as often as they lead to controversies. If you can’t find anything after scrolling for a bit, it may be time to give up. Chances are, there’s nothing of value in those cases.

Perpetrator’s Side

Perpetrators don’t always have someone calling them out as such. Especially with smaller ones, the above methods are less likely to work. If so, don’t fret - there’s one last way!

Some innocuous words become hot-button topics of drama and controversy over time. Think of the current politics. When this happens, try to look them up.

Alternatively, romantic and sexually charged dialogue can be problematic in certain circumstances: between children and adults, relatives, etc. This does require knowing age and blood relations, though.

…

Good luck on your mission to dig up someone’s potentially problematic content. You’ll need it. Finally, remember to report anything horribly illegal that you find to the authorities.

Any other thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments!

Sources

1: https://www.google.com/advanced_search

2: https://twitter.com/search-advanced?lang=en

Medium version: https://medium.com/@SnarkyLisa/how-to-find-an-influencers-problematic-content-89f81469b310?source=user_profile---------1----------------------------

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