Kiwi businesses most likely target for fake news attacks - Massey University Business School senior lecturer Jenny Hou

Organisations must proactively combat fake news to protect their reputations, Massey University Business School senior lecturer Jenny Hou says. Photo / Supplied

Unlike overseas, it hasn't potentially significantly influenced who we choose to lead our country.

But fake news has still arrived in New Zealand, with businesses the most frequent target for now, an expert says.

Massey University Business School senior lecturer Jenny Hou has returned from a fellowship in New York and written a report on how Kiwi businesses can protect themselves from the damaging practice.

"New Zealand is a small market so there is not the same economic advantage to spreading fake news about a competitor, but there have been some cases reported."

This included companies posting negative comments about competitors on review websites.

In 2015 a spat also erupted between the co-owner of North Shore's Bushman's Grill, Tammy Ockerse, and nearby The Commons bar manager Craig Lamb after the latter penned a caustic review on restaurant website Zomato.

Lamb stood by his review, but Ockerse called it "totally bogus".

Bushman's Grill co-owners Shane Bezuidenhout, left, Tammy Ockerse, claimed they were victims of a fake review by a neighbouring restaurant's employee. File photo / Michael Craig

More dramatic as the confessions made in vice.com this week when a writer admitted to an earlier career of writing fake TripAdvisor reviews for restaurants, and later using the experience to set up a non-existent restaurant, based on a garden shed, and getting it to the top of TripAdvisor's London ratings.

Consumer New Zealand also fell victim to a fake review about its operations, and Flick Electric, on its website last winter.

Chief executive Sue Chetwin said at the time the reviewer worked for a public relations' company which had a competing electricity retailer on the books.

The Kaikoura quake also sparked false claims shared widely on social media that the 7.8 magnitude monster was caused by a company surveying for oil.

And this week Fiji sevens coach Gareth Baber was again forced to address a cruel online hoax that he had been killed in a South Island car crash.

Fake news isn't new — propaganda dates back to World War I, Hou said.

But the internet has changed how easily and quickly it can spread.

In New York she learned how US public relations' experts are combating fake news.

US president Donald Trump often claims stories are fake news, but others believe he owes his election in part due to fake news. Photo / AP

Organisations must proactively combat fake news to protect their reputations, Hou said.

"It's not necessarily the 'truth', but the 'perceived truth' that is important when it comes to an organisation's reputation and bottom line. There's no point in shifting the blame onto the media, technology, regulators or news consumers. Organisations need to take the initiative and develop long-term, proactive strategies for dealing with the challenges of fake news."

This could be done by developing "public relations literacy", she said.

"Media literacy is a well-accepted concept – it is the critical skill that news consumers need to spot and discern fake news. But public relations literacy gives you the skills to articulate your story and protect your organisation from fake news.

"It's a paradox that unethical PR (public relations) can be the source of fake news, but PR can also be a very powerful weapon and positive way of protecting organisations from its impact."

Relationship building should be the cornerstone of an organisation's PR activities, including aligning with credible mainstream media and fact check websites. In the US websites such as snopes.com did the heavy lifting, but New Zealand does not have the same resource.

"Quality relationships with a wide range of stakeholders will count more than words when dealing with the long-term impact of a fake news story."