It’s no secret the Anti-MLM Movement has been gaining traction the last few years. People have begun to see through the deceptions of multi-level marketing, and they are tired of being preyed upon by these barely legal recruitment schemes. In the last year especially, we have started to see a collective understanding that we do have the power to cause change through reporting deceptive marketing claims, as well as through education and awareness.
MLM companies have not only taken notice but continually attempt to combat those speaking out by any means necessary. Cease and desist letters, lawsuits, smear campaigns, and information control are typically their weapons of choice. If we look at these companies not only as recruitment schemes but as commercial cults we begin to understand why controlling the narrative to their distributors, and potential recruits, is so important. They sell a dream, a fantasy, and when the reality of MLM sets in the only way they can keep people hooked on that dream is through tactics commonly used by high control groups.
When it comes to curbing the anti-MLM message, MLM companies often employ two methods: thought control and information control. These tactics cause a feeling of distrust that allows distributors to ignore different points of view. It essentially creates an echo chamber where only the information from the company itself is correct, critics be damned.
One highly used form of thought control is black and white thinking. Black and white thinking, also known as splitting, “is a thought pattern that makes people think in absolutes.” It is used in high control groups to create a sense of Us vs Them. Anyone not supportive of the distributor and their involvement in MLM is “negative” and anyone that dare speak against the company is the enemy. Often labeling anti-MLMers “haters.” Although, in this latest situation we will be deemed “spammers” and “trolls.”
Information control is then used to spin the narrative in their favor. MLMs won’t tell you about their lawsuits, scientific studies critiquing their products, or any other potentially damning information unless they have no choice. Once their hand is forced, they will often insult the critics/critical information and persuade their followers to ignore the red flags and instead focus on other things, like ways to combat critiques of said “haters.” Information control tactics are further explained in Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control:
Now that we have some understanding of the tactics MLMs use and the reasoning behind it, let’s examine Herbalife’s recently released “Quick Reference Guide: Handling Negative Reviews, Spamming, and Spammers” and why they released it. This reference guide was released because anti-MLM activists have started warning consumers of nutrition clubs, the true purpose of these clubs, and the potential dangers of the products they sell, through online reviews.
Reviewing nutrition clubs as a form of anti-MLM consumer advocacy really started to pick up in 2019. I myself wrote a review for a club in 2019, and after being asked by numerous people if they could use it, have posted the review on my social media and in anti-MLM groups to be used at will. Following the 2020 SEC cases, I then updated the review.
Most recently, I again updated the review and turned it into an infographic which I shared in my last blog post: Herbalife Infographics. With this review, I aimed to keep it fact-based, opinion-light, and backed by sources to allow consumers to not only be warned but to do their own information gathering. I think this is important to mention, and explain, because of the large number of times my review has been used in the further reviewing of nutrition clubs and shares on social media. Keep that in mind.
As you can see, most of the review is in fact direct quotes with citations included. For the sake of full transparency, and due diligence, I will post the second version of the review in full text with sources linked and a couple of bonus links (including the new one in the 3rd version of the review) for good measure:
WARNING: This is simply a recruitment center for Herbalife.
Herbalife was sued by the FTC in 2016 because the “company’s compensation structure was unfair because it rewards distributors for recruiting others to join and purchase products in order to advance in the marketing program, rather than in response to actual retail demand for the product, causing substantial economic injury to many of its distributors.”
This is verbatim the description of a product-based pyramid scheme. Based on their current compensation plan and income disclosure statement they have done little to nothing to change how they conduct business. The average annual gross income of all reps is less than $5000 a year before expenses.
On top of that in September 2019 Herbalife had another lawsuit with the SEC. Herbalife “has agreed to pay $20 million to settle charges that it made false and misleading statements about its China business model in numerous U.S. regulatory filings over a six-year period.”
And in November 2019 “U.S. prosecutors criminally charged two former executives of Herbalife Nutrition Ltd’s (HLF.N) Chinese unit with running a decade-long scheme to bribe Chinese government officials to win business and evade regulatory scrutiny” and “The bribes were intended to help Los Angeles-based Herbalife obtain direct selling licenses, reduce government scrutiny of its Chinese operations, and suppress negative coverage by state-controlled media, authorities said.”
In August 2020 they yet again settled another criminal lawsuit with the SEC “The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Herbalife Nutrition Ltd. has agreed to pay more than $67 million to settle charges that it violated the books and records and internal accounting controls provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). In a parallel action, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York today announced that Herbalife will pay a criminal fine of more than $55 million for a total of more than $123 million paid in both actions.”
In October 2020, a class action lawsuit has been reopened against Herbalife top distributors “A federal court in Miami has reopened a class action seeking more than $140 million in damages against 44 of the top distributors of a global nutrition supplement company.”
And last but not least there have been multiple accounts of Herbalife products being contaminated and causing liver failure in multiple people, one case ending in death.
Corrupt Herbalife, later threatened legal action against the scientific journal that posted the first study listed above. The journal removed the study for legal, not scientific, reasons. “…as soon as powerful companies threaten to sue a publisher because they are unhappy about a paper, suddenly things get retracted — with no scientific reason.
This is just wrong. Science should be about finding the truth.”
Do yourself, and your health, a favor and avoid this, and all Herbalife nutrition shops. They do not have your best interest at heart. More info on nutrition clubs:
Bonus links:
and even more information can be found checking the reference section of the Wikipedia page for Herbalife here:
So now let’s have a look and the reference guide Herbalife released:
“…anything that looks copied from other anti-multilevel marketing (MLM) posts, reviews, or comments.” That’s an interesting inclusion. I find some of their other assertations equally interesting. To highlight, I think we need to have a good hard look at some dictionary definitions.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary:
send the same message indiscriminately to (large numbers of recipients) on the internet.
And here is a further explanation from Techopedia:
“What Does Spamming Mean?
Spamming is the use of electronic messaging systems like e-mails and other digital delivery systems and broadcast media to send unwanted bulk messages indiscriminately. The term spamming is also applied to other media like in internet forums, instant messaging, and mobile text messaging, social networking spam, junk fax transmissions, television advertising and sharing network spam.
Spamming (especially e-mail spam) is very common because of the economics. Spam advertisers have little to no operating costs and so need only a minute response rate to make a profit. Most spam are commercial advertising, but some contain viruses, adware, or scams.”
Hmm… Reviewing nutrition clubs, quite discriminately, for the sole purpose of consumer advocacy, even with a copy and pasted fact-based, clearly cited review certainly doesn’t fit this definition.
Now let’s look and the Oxford English Dictionary definition of troll:
noun
noun: troll; plural noun: trolls
-
a person who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online post.
-
a deliberately offensive or provocative online post.
verb
- make a deliberately offensive or provocative online post with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.
“if people are obviously trolling then I’ll delete your posts and do my best to ban you”
Reviewing of nutrition clubs isn’t being done to elicit an angry response or upset anyone, it’s done to warn and educate consumers so they can make informed decisions about their health and where they spend their money. The only attention it is trying to garner is the attention of those consumers. Anti-MLM reviewers receive no monetary gain or accolades for writing an online review, unlike Herbalife who does gain monetarily from suppression of their past indiscretions. The reviews could only be interpreted as offensive or provocative if you have a vested interest in hiding the factual information listed within them. If you are attempting to hide or distort important factual information from consumers that is deceptive marketing. So is Herbalife admitting they are upset by factual information? Are they admitting that factual information should be distorted and hidden from consumers? I’ll let you decide.
Now let’s look at the definitions of slander and articles :
the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person’s reputation.
“he is suing the TV network for slander”
Seeing as articles are:
noun
plural noun: articles
2. a piece of writing included with others in a newspaper, magazine, or other publication.
It seems it’s impossible for the articles to be slandering since they are written not spoken. Defamatory or libelous, possibly, but given Herbalife’s poor display of vocabulary skills, and presumed anger over the sharing facts, I’d personally question their claims. Why don’t we finish up the vocabulary lesson with the definition of libel:
-
LAW
a published false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation; a written defamation.
-
LAW
defame (someone) by publishing a libel.
“she alleged the magazine had libeled her”
Most important to note here is “false statement.” For defamation, in any form, to be proven it needs to be shown to be a knowingly false statement with malicious intent. Writing an article or review, with intent to warn consumers, based on facts, and those facts clearly cited, can not be defamatory because it is neither false nor malicious. With all things considered, one could seemingly argue Herbalife is actually the one making libelous statements about the anti-MLM movement, the consumer advocates partaking in nutrition club reviewing, and the journalists writing news articles covering the company. But, hey, what do I know? I’m supposedly just a spamming spammer troll after all.
“The only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are the people with something to hide.” – Pres. Barack Obama
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