Right, but if you could do it using a meaningless portion of your wealth, and it didn’t morally bother you, why not silence all criticism of you? Once you hire the people, it should run itself like any traditional PR firm.

Through what mechanism would a PR firm that you hired to monitor online sentiment convince a French bank to close someone's accounts for criticizing your companies? Who at the PR firm has the power to reach decisionmakers at the bank, and what would they say?