West Africa
Aided by Yes Men, activists strike at Shell
Faked internal emails alert employees to the oil giant's record in Nigeria
Topics: Business, Nigeria, Oil, Oil industy, Shell, Supreme Court, The Yes Men, West Africa, Business News, News
Shell blocked employees’ access to an activist website providing information about harm wrought by the oil giant’s drilling plans in West Africa.
In a Yes Men-aided stunt, activist group People Against Legalizing Murder (PALM), posing as an internal Shell division, emailed 71,010 shell employees directing them to a site with information about a human rights case — Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum — being argued by the U.S. Supreme Court. The email encouraged recipients to spread the word and even tweet their feelings on the case to Oprah.
The website, which highlighted Shell’s presence in Nigeria, was blocked to Shell employees within minutes. The activist group, which allegedly received employee emails from a Shell insider, was swift to change the site’s URL and re-email the oil company employees.
“Surely most Shell employees, like most people, don’t want multinationals to get away with murder just because murder’s convenient,” said Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Lab, which provided technical assistance for the action.
A release from PALM and the Yes Lab elaborates on the reason for stunt:
CloseNatasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com. More Natasha Lennard.