Making SNS and other Digital Spaces more Safe and Sound

Takahiro Okumura

ManagerMarketing Communication Group, Communication Department
Eltes Co., Ltd.

1. Changes and Issues in “Human×DigitalSpace” with COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in accelerationof digital transformation (DX). In business, non-face-to-facecommunication has increased, conducting meetings and customer
interaction on-line, where physical distance is not an issue.
Communication is moving from real to digital space. Use of online
tools is considerable, both for B2B and B2C activities, and theimportance of reputation in digital space is expected to increase
even more in the future. As such, an understanding of how tone
governs digital space is essential for decision making in enterprisemanagement.
However, it is extremely difficult to understand tone accurately
in digital space. It is possible to understand and verify tone to someextent by just gathering information with a search engine, but on
SNS, where information can flow forcefully and energetically, it
is difficult to grasp the tone correctly. This is because distortionsof a speaker’s intentions can accumulate, and after non-factual
information has spread, it cannot be suppressed. This results ina particular risk of damage due to flare-ups or rumors on theInternet.
It is still fresh in our minds how there has also been an “infodemic” with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, causing fear
and uncertainty for many people. For example, in Japan there waswidespread speculation on SNS, that materials for masks would
be diverted from Japan and import of materials from China would
stop, which resulted in a shortage of toilet paper. In Iran, there wasa rumor on SNS that drinking strong alcohol would kill the virus
in one’s body. Many people who believed the rumor drank strong
alcohol containing methanol and died of methanol poisoning.
To raise awareness regarding this infodemic, the World HealthOrganization (WHO) created new content on their COVID-19
Web site, with advice regarding superstition and anxiety and how
to avoid being misled by unreliable information.
There have also been cases of widespread rumors, whereposts were made with parts of a paper or someone else’s post werequoted, cutting out and rearranged phrases to suit the biases of theposter. For example, information stating that “epigallocatechingallate (EGCG), found in green tea, has strong anti-viral effect,”degenerated into “is an effective treatment for novel coronavirus,”
and got distributed. In this case, the essence of the information
was lost by the extraction and rearranging of wording.
Communication on SNS occurs through the exchange ofshort messages, so brevity results in strong tendencies not toconvey the intended meaning, for the meaning to change when

only part of a sequence of tweets is quoted, and for information
to become distorted in the process of transmission. Readers alsoskim through the huge f low of messages over time and caninterpret messages incorrectly, without carefully scrutinizing
the information. People today are exposed to huge amounts of
information and are used to consuming information in summary,so it is not uncommon to just accept whatever information isreceived. Eltes is conducting analyses of information related
to COVID-19. In this process we have learned that incorrect
information that gets distributed on SNS often dies down due
to fact-checked articles appearing in the media, but then itsometimes begins to spread again on bulletin boards and othermedia. In our diversifying digital space, a single fact check alone
will not correct incorrect information, and there is a possibility
that it will flare up again. Our analysis has revealed the problem
that once incorrect information has spread it transforms
successively in digital space and variations tend to increase.
The likelihood that information will be misinterpreted due topoor writing ability or poor reading comprehension is always high,so incorrect information is often repeated, moved and reissued
in digital space. For these reasons, when information starts todisperse, it is increasingly difficult to follow in real time.

2. D anger that distortion in digital space willaffect the real world“DIGITAL2020: GLOBAL DIGITAL OVERVIEW” isa report analyzing the trends and tendencies of people aroundthe world on digital, mobile and social media. According to thereport, more than 4.5 billion people used the Internet, and users ofsocial media had surpassed 3.8 billion people as of the beginningof 2020. This means nearly 60% of the global population is using
the Internet, an increase of 7% compared to 2019. The average
Internet user spends six hours and 43 minutes on line every day,so assuming they sleep eight hours a day, 40% or more of theirwaking hours are spent using the Internet.
The report also indicates that the time connected to digitalspace is increasing from year to year. The COVID-19 pandemic
has spurred this on, and with fewer opportunities to meetface-to-face, we can expect people are more active collecting
information online. Although digitization is making people’s lives
more convenient, it also brings new risks. In fact, as the amountof connection time has increased, the amount of slander anddefamation on the Internet has also tended to increase. Cases ofarrest or litigation due to malicious posts are becoming more andmore common. Cases where thoughtless, slanderous comments

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made anonymously have resulted in lost lives are also continuing tooccur. Calls for morals in digital space are increasing daily.
The idea that digital space and real society is separate isa thing of the past. A person’s personality and corresponding
reputation in digital space has become inseparable from that in
the real world, whether good or bad. Because of this, there may
be increasing danger that when distortions appear in digital space,
they will have effects in the real world as well.
This is not only a problem for individuals; it also applies toenterprises. Enterprise managers must make certain preparations
for the risk of injustices characteristic of digital space. An
important factor in doing so is the use of intelligence, the resultof information processing and analysis, as the basis of decision
making.
When slander, defamation or flare-ups occurs on the Internet,
many people have a tendency to perceive it as though it is theprevailing attitude in society. However, such issues cannot be dealt
with properly without correctly determining whether it really is aprevailing attitude or just that of a noisy few. Incidentally, during
Japan’s Warring States period, warring armies were known touse human figures to give the impression that they were stronger
militarily. In a similar way, there have been many cases when asingle person has created additional accounts on SNS and otherplatforms to spread slander and defamation, when actually it is justone or a small number of people. Rumors are like natural disasters
and impossible to prevent before they occur. However, damage
can be minimized by perceiving the matter correctly. To preventthe spread of negative effects in the real world, enterprises need
intelligence, including that gained from monitoring digital space.

3. Eltes accomplishments in the domain ofInternet flare-up and rumor damage control

Eltes has set a policy of “continuing to fight against digitalrisk,” and as an organization of digital risk managementspecialists, we are developing various solutions to resolve
digital risk. We support management of digital risk emerging
as digital transformation (DX) of society progresses, including
the expansion of services such as search engines, SNS and online banking, made possible by development of information andcommunications infrastructure technology and digital devices. For
example, we provide comprehensive risk management solutions
for enterprise social media operations, which have presented realrisk as business environments have changed. We have provided
digital risk management-related services to over 1,000 companies,including listed companies such as NTT DOCOMO, Mazda,

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There are two main types of digital risk management. The
first is “Social Risk Management.” As the number of SNS users
has increased, “incidents” have occurred frequently. The numberof Internet f lare-ups has increased annually since 2011. We
develop support for social risk management to help prevent such
incidents in three phases, which are: “Survey, analysis, and systembuilding,” in which we gain an understanding of potential risks
and business improvements and decide rules; “Operations,” inwhich we perform early detection of emergent risks and rapid
initial response; and “Countermeasures,” in which we support
mitigation of such risks.
The “Survey, analysis, and system building” service involves
collection and analysis of information on the Internet regarding
the enterprise and its products and services, which we deliver as areport. We also provide a marketing analysis through comparison
with competition and information collected regarding leaks,events and incidents occurring overseas. We first collect all
articles on the Web related to our client enterprise. These areplaced in categories such as positive or negative, according to
pre-determined conditions. We also expose potential risks andissues like the detailed reputation of products and analyze future
initiatives. These are also summarized in a report. We can also
create operating regulations and manuals necessary for introducing
a new, public SNS presence, or if social media policies werecreated several years earlier and are no longer suited to current
conditions, we can support revising them and provide otherfollow-up on the organizational structure of SNS operations.
The main activity during the “Operations” phase is Web
risk monitoring. We monitor the Internet 24 hours-a-day and
365 days-a-year for information including rumors regarding theenterprise or its products or services, risk of information leak due
to the company’s employees, and other particulars such as risk
related to malvertising, pharmaceutical products or consumerprotection. If urgent information is detected, we also consult
regarding urgent notifications and how to deal with them.
For the final phase, “Countermeasures,” we provide ourWeb Risk Monitoring clients with dedicated consultants, whoseamlessly conduct a risk assessment for the matter when a risk
is detected. The content that precipitated the crisis is analyzed
for credibility and potential effect, and a profile of the source isprepared. For escalation after risk is detected, we can even provide
support for crisis management public relations as needed, createpress releases, train for press interviews and provide advice on
handling the situation going forward. If the crisis grows, we also

provide consulting services to handle public relations for crisis
management. To deal with search engine reputation, we canidentify issues with how the enterprise, its products or services, areviewed on search engines, which is an important factor in forming
reputation and users’ brand experience. We also plan strategies tosolve issues and achieve objectives, and design KPIs.
We now discuss some examples of enterprises that haveintroduced Web Risk Monitoring. Food products company, AInc., was concerned that they would be associated with a flareup on SNS regarding the food-products industry in 2016. They
decided to use Eltes Web Risk Monitoring based on our “24 houra-day, 365 days-a-year risk detection system,” and our “ability toprovide rapid contact with dedicated staff.” That is, the fact that
we have been able to implement effective risk monitoring, and thathuman staff use their intuition in interpreting subtleties in posts
regarding the company as they appear each day and in making
decisions. Our monitoring service can also support matters otherthan risk, and not only when negative incidents occur. An example
is collecting information regarding reactions after a commercial isbroadcast.
Web Risk Monitoring is not limited to monitoring SNS
regarding a company’s products or promotional activities.
Company B in the service industry uses it to detect potentiallyrisky posts on SNS, but also to gather positive feedback fromcustomers regarding service provision, which it uses internally togive recognition and commendations.
In addition to the Social Risk Management service we havebeen discussing, Eltes also has initiatives for enterprise digitalrisk counter measures, with two approaches to Internal Risk
management. These involve cross-sectional analysis of logs, andanalysis of behavior to detect internal behavioral risk.

4. Advanced flame-up/rumor damage control
using AI

Eltes is introducing AI to our Web Risk Monitoring Service
to improve quality. However, we are not depending entirely onAI. We hope to improve both service quality and efficiency byintegrating the strengths of both AI and human operators. As
such, we first used AI to implement a mechanism that classifies
posts as either negative, neutral, or positive for our Web Risk
Monitoring service, as a measure against flare-ups and rumors
on the Internet. However, we had three main problems with thiseffort.
(1)	A large amount of correct training data was needed to obtaincorrect classifications from the AI.

(2)	Popular words and phrases come and go, so updates(maintenance) are necessary.
(3)	Interpreting the meaning correctly from the text and context isvery difficult.
To solve problem (1) we began work creating training data for
an AI to classify posts as negative, neutral, or positive, based on
the data that we had been collecting continuously since the Web
Risk Monitoring Service began in 2011. To create the training
data, we had to indicate which posts were obviously negative, orpositive, but we found that even for the same post, there are cases
when this decision would be different depending on the type ofbusiness or industry, so deciding what was “obvious” was not easy.
It was relatively easy to collect posts that are “obviously” neutral,
but it was much more difficult than we expected to prepare alarge number of posts that were negative or positive. Our longexperience providing services contributed greatly to creating
enough high-quality training data.
For problem (2), that popular words and phrases come andgo, we designed a solution involving human intervention. For
example, use of the Japanese word, “ataoka” to mean “someone
with a screw loose” became generally popular after being usedby a comedian, and won 1st prize in the Insta-Buzzword awards
announced by Petrel Inc. in the first half of 2019. Until several
years ago, “ataoka” was not a recognized word, and that might be
why the AI did not classify it as negative. Thus, there are trends inthe language used on SNS, and such changes in language must be
reflected constantly in the training data used by the AI to classify
negative and positive posts. To handle this, we are using humansensitivities to capture the meaning and sense of words, andreflecting this accurately in our training data.
Finally, problem (3), correctly interpreting meaning fromtext and context, is difficult for AIs. Morphological analysis
divides the text into small units to extract the meaning, buteven a particle can completely change the meaning, so it is very
difficult. For example, the phrase, “I like B better than A,” in apost comparing two companies’ products tends to be difficult toclassify as negative, neural, or positive. Considering that currently
AIs also have difficulty with posts that contain positive words
but are negative (such as “I always wanted to go to that store,
but unfortunately could not”), and posts that contain unusual
expressions, we have these posts classified by people.

5. E
 ltes optimized digital risk countermeasuresolution

The value of the Web Risk Monitoring Service is early

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detection of posts that pose a risk. Put another way, negative
posts will not go unnoticed. Although 80 to 90% of posts wereclassified as neutral even before AI was introduced, the problem
remains that it is very difficult to interpret the meaning correctlyfrom the text and context, and we found that it is difficult to leave
Web Risk Monitoring entirely to the AI. As such, we created aworkflow giving the role of screening for neutral posts to the AI,excluding posts that could be negative and are difficult for the AI,
such as when the meaning is difficult to interpret from the textand context, and when they contain a mix of positive and negativewords. Such posts are handled by a dedicated staff member.
As a result, our human staff concentrate on subtle posts on
the Internet that may involve our client and be related to flare-ups
or rumors. Thus, we have built an environment in which humanerror is reduced and we can detect flare-ups and issue urgent
notifications quickly, improving the quality of the service. We arealso able to use positive and negative data judged by our humanstaff to train the AI, incorporating information about language
trends and improving the accuracy of AI results.
The same post can have widely varying effect on thereputation of an enterprise, depending on the enterprise inquestion and trends in society. In addition to sending urgent
notifications regarding posts that indicate risk to an enterprise, we
also offer dedicated consultants that can support the enterprise in
its initial response.
It is difficult to judge the effects on real society, of what issuperficially just numbers and text in digital space. Distortions
emerge in digital space due to the actions of people, and Eltes
is fighting against the resulting digital risk. We are using ourexpertise to combine the strengths of both people and AI, and willcontinue the fight against digital risk as it continues to change.

 ltes Co. Ltd. “Web Risk Monitoring Service” Overview.
■ Figure: E
24 hour-a-day, 365 days-a-year monitoring of posts for various types of incident, crisis notification andconsultation to deal with them when posts including risky content are detected.

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