It's no longer just the danger of bad stories going viral. In the digital age, corporations face a very different and unprecedented threat. Now, an array of hostile forces has integrated strategies, collaborating in multifaceted campaigns to put targeted companies or industries on the defensive, damage reputations and secure significant changes in corporate policy.

They're often referred to as “corporate campaigns” or “global strategic campaigns.” The adversaries include labor unions, activist groups, minority shareholders and plaintiffs' lawyers. Their agendas are mutually supportive, such that a lawsuit or an attack on a company's environmental practices can be leveraged to force concessions to union organizers.

If such strategy is formidably protean, the Internet is just the right tool to consolidate this global collaboration. These adversaries use Big Data to gather astounding volumes of information about companies. They organize shareholders online. They launch personal attacks against executives. They don't hope the content goes viral. They make it viral.