How to Stop Online Defamation-Take Down Internet Defamation

There are several news articles website on the Internet that carry news about individuals and organizations, mainly negative and especially juicy stories.

The news articles might have their in-house journalist and writers who scavenge for information through various means. They could subsequently investigate and from their findings, write out their news about the individual or organization and post online.

In some cases, this news articles company could get such information from other websites where someone has posted negative news about you or your organization.

They could lift such news and quote the website they are getting it from.

This could become more difficult because as more websites continue to pick up the information, the more even more websites will pick up the information and the more difficult it will be to remove the news articles.

This is why it is often best to act the instant you observe that negative information about you has been posted online. This way, once the information is removed from that particular website, you can finally rest.

The best way to remove negative news articles from your website is by using the services of a reliable reputation management company. They would have various means and tools that they can use to make sure that the content is removed from the website.

If they cannot successfully help you remove the content from the website, then chances are that there is nobody else that will be able to help you remove such content.

However, even in cases where they can’t help you to remove such information, they can always use other processes to reduce the effect of such negative news articles on your organization.

There are hundreds of millions of websites on the Internet, people do not have the luxury of going through each and every one of them to find out if there is negative content about you on any of them. Thus, people looking for information about you or your organization mostly go through search engines.

Billions of searches are carried out daily on the Internet, some of which might be looking for information about you. The implication is that out of every 10 people that get to see information about you on the Internet, at least 7 of them would have been directed to your page from a search engine.

Thus, if you can manage negative content about you on search engines, you will be able to reduce the effects of negative information about you or your organization online by at least 70 percent.

First impressions count. From micro-influencers to mass media, shaping the perceptions of your brand through creative and measurable communication is critical to your future success.

Have you ever found unwanted Google search results that shocked or alarmed you, such as an embarrassing or intimate photograph of you, leaked sensitive or inaccurate information, or other damaging personal information or comments?

You are not alone. In today’s oversaturated online world, there are plenty of opportunities for negative search results that may have a damaging effect on your business or reputation.

You can remove unwanted Google search results by:

Reviewing and adjusting your websites and social media profiles’ privacy settings
Using opt-out policies on websites that display or collect your information
Updating your (or your business’s) sensitive information in Google’s Knowledge Graph
Asking a website to remove content
Engaging in online reputation management

In this post, we will take a closer look at how search engines prioritize and return results, what kinds of results search engines will generally remove, and how to get unwanted search results taken down. By the end of this article, you should have a clear understanding of how to protect your (or your business’s) reputation online.

What Is Slander?

Also known as oral or spoken defamation, slander is the legal term for the act of harming a person’s reputation by telling one or more other people something that is untrue and damaging about that person. Slander can be the basis for a lawsuit and is considered a civil wrong

The internet is a big place. You might wonder why it is worth your time to try getting negative search results removed when it feels like searching for a needle in an exponentially-growing haystack.

However, monitoring and maintaining your digital footprint has become a necessity for businesses and individuals alike. While a positive online review or online presence can work wonders for your reputation, negative and damaging search results can dismantle it just as quickly.

As evidence is emerging that proves defamation against a company has the real potential of influencing its share value, company directors and particularly non-executive directors, are becoming more concerned about finding themselves victims of defamation. Whilst feeling as if you are not being listened to or being ignored, it does not take long before those who defamed the company in the first instant escalate their defamatory activities and begin to target the executives. This adds a new element of risk to the position of a non-executive director of a company.

As large portions of websites are being backed up and archived by third parties, the personal price that company directorship extracts might be far greater and longer lasting than initially anticipated.

For instance, unwanted search results can:

Harm your personal reputation and relationships;
Harm your business or professional reputation;
Cause stress and be emotionally taxing to you personally;
Cost you a great deal of money (either by losing customers or employment).

How Do You Remove Your Name From the Google Search Engine Completely?
Unfortunately, it is not possible to remove your name completely from Google’s search engine. However, there are a few best practices to keep in mind when trying to remove information that can be taken down and protecting your digital privacy:

Embrace the fact that more and more information, especially publicly available information, is being posted and stored online;
Practice information control. Post and promote only the information that you are comfortable with the world seeing, and do your best to take down everything that is private;
Engage in online reputation management and the suppression of information you do not want to appear on the first page;
Delete and deactivate unneeded accounts;
Set your social media and other accounts to private (or adjust the privacy settings);
Remove yourself or opt-out from data broker sites like MyLife.com;
Remove your personal information from websites you control and from your websites’ Whois information.

How Slander Works

Slander represents the verbal or spoken version of defamation. Defamation occurs when someone’s words cause harm to another person’s reputation or livelihood. Slander is different from libel (written or broadcast defamation). Slander is considered more temporary than libel since it involves speech and is not written or published. Although broadcast typically involves spoken words, it is considered libel because, in theory, it reaches a large audience just as written words do, making it less temporary.

For slander to occur, the statement made must be presented as fact, not opinion. In addition, the statement must be made to a third party. In the case of public figures, proving slander also requires the public figure to prove the statement was made “with malice.”

Libel vs. Slander

Imagine you wrote a blog comment asserting that its author received a dishonorable discharge from the military. If the claim made in that post is false, then this certainly appears to be a case of defamation. However, if it is a true statement, there can be no claim of defamation.

Yet, even if the statement is false, the blog's owner may not care very much what people believe about their exit from the military. In such a case, their audience may also not care much, making the statement potentially not defamatory.

From a strictly legal perspective, defamatory comments are not considered libel unless they are properly published. Unfortunately for ill-intended bloggers, the term “published,” in the context of Internet communication, legally means that merely a single individual must read the offensive blog in question.

Consequently, a webmaster may be sued for libeling someone by trashing their reputation on a personal blog, if only his best pal, a colleague, or a family member consumes the defamatory words.