Our Practice Areas
Content Removal Checks and Strategies
- In today’s digital age, hateful content can quickly tarnish one’s reputation, whether it’s in the form of malicious blog posts, negative reviews, biased articles, or inflammatory public comments.
- With the surge of new online data, the risk of encountering content problems grows dramatically.
- This has led to mounting challenges related to erasing unwanted online materials for both individuals and enterprises.
- Your digital footprint as a professional or business entity is paramount on the internet.
- When encountering new acquaintances, many resort to an online search as a preliminary check.
- This is common when seeking academic admissions, job hunting, or even while venturing into online romance.
- Similarly, before engaging with a company, prospective clients often look them up online or through background checks.
- The impressions from these searches can shape future opportunities, so it’s vital to maintain a favorable online image.
- Individuals can give credence to unfavorable online material in search results, regardless if it is misleading or untrue.
- Especially if this kind of negative information goes viral across multiple social media platforms.
- As you can assume, viral content is much more difficult to contain as the deletion process becomes extremely tedious.
- This is why it is vehemently crucial to promptly address and remove content that can be detrimental to your personal or professional online presence.
Content Removal Checks and Strategies
Removing Hateful Content with Centurion
- Centurion Law Firm recognizes the lasting impact of such content and is dedicated to restoring your online image.
- By leveraging our legal defamation expertise, we assist in the swift removal of these detrimental elements from the web to ensure your safety and online reputation.
- Our experienced attorneys work tirelessly to assure that both individuals and businesses are able to maintain a healthy, optimal online presence and adverse the effects of unwanted, harmful content.
- They consistently engage in the deletion of content from search engines, social networking sites, news outlets, blogs, discussion boards, listing sites, defamatory websites, adult content platforms, and more to safeguard your image or business.
Some Examples of Providing Content Removal Services For Our Clients:
- Elimination of Slanderous Material
- Refreshing, Delisting, or Erasing Adverse News Reports
- Halting Online Intimidations, Maltreatment, and Discriminatory Language
- Withdrawal of Personal and Confidential Data from the Web
- Addressing Misuse of Blogger or Influencer Works
- Detecting and Eradicating Non-Consensual Explicit Content
- Preventing Online Blackmail with Intimate Content
- Discovering or Revealing Hidden and Fake Online Identities & Eliminating Their Material
If Contacting The Source Doesn’t Work, Use DMCA Notices
- If you’re the rightful owner of content that’s been shared by an external party, you might consider using a DMCA Takedown Notice for its removal.
- The DMCA Takedown Notice is essentially a formal request by the content’s owner, urging a particular platform or website to take down specified content.
- DMCA, or Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is a law that oversees the creation and distribution of copyrighted materials on the web.
- While it offers a cushion for online platform operators and service providers against being held accountable for any copyright violations by their users, this shield isn’t absolute.
- It is important to note that you aren’t necessarily required to hold a copyright of the shared material to issue a DMCA notice.
- This typically extends to any professional online that includes, but not limited to: coders, content creators, NFT holders, social media members, and more.
- DMCA Notices typically include:
- Your Details: Name, address, contact number, and email.
- Content Information: A pinpoint of the copyrighted content, its description, its original legitimate source, and a brief on where it’s found.
- Technical Confirmations: An assertion that you genuinely believe the contentious usage isn’t sanctioned by the rightful owner, any representative, or law; a sworn declaration, under risk of perjury, affirming the information you’ve provided is correct, and you’re either the content owner or their authorized representative; and a digital or physical signature from you or your delegate.
- After preparing your DMCA notice, forward it to the platform or website’s service provider.
- Keep in mind that in some cases, you might need to delve deeper into the website owner’s contact information.
Send A Cease and Desist Letter
- Cease and desist letters are formal written notices urging an individual or entity to stop engaging in alleged wrongful or defamatory actions; such as infringing certain content like music or personal harassment, from their websites or social media platforms, and refrain from restarting them in the future.
- Although the letters are not legally binding, they clarify the sender’s rights and indicate that they are prepared to take formal legal action if the situation is not resolved.
- By detailing the hurtful content and explaining why it’s not allowed, the letter tells the person who posted it that the complaint is serious and needs attention.
- It’s important to note that malicious individuals can reproduce our cease and desist letters and display them alongside the damaging content, implying to their audience that you’re trying to muzzle them.
- Although the entire situation is challenging to curb these behaviors without resorting to legal action, these instances can be used in legal proceedings to show that they were aware of the falsehood of their statements and purposefully spread misleading or harmful information about you or your company.
Filing A Lawsuit or Court Order
- There are certain occasions when the only way to address an issue is to file a lawsuit.
- This legal process typically starts with the submission of a Summons and Complaint, which notifies the defendant of the lawsuit and its nature.
- Depending on your jurisdiction and method of service, the defendant is required to respond within 20 to 30 days.
- Legal fees in general can be expensive, with initial fees requiring about a few hundred dollars depending on the state.
- Beyond monetary costs, legal actions might inadvertently give more attention to the issue you’re trying to suppress, as demonstrated by the “Streisand Effect.”
- This term originated when Barbara Streisand attempted to remove an online photograph of her house.
- Instead of it staying obscure, her lawsuit spotlighted the photo, skyrocketing its views from a mere six downloads to over 420,000 site visits after the legal action.
- Sometimes pursuing a lawsuit is the only resolution to remove content if the publisher doesn’t comply.
- It’s also important to keep in mind that major social media platforms like Google or Facebook are not liable for user-generated content due to the Communications Decency Act.
- This means that your lawsuit will specifically target the user, not the platform.
- Our attorneys are proactive in starting and taking you through the tedious legal process of removing hateful content.
Contact Centurion today to remove hateful content now.
FAQ's
1. Is it possible to sue someone for posting hateful content about me even if it’s true?
Depending on your jurisdiction and the nature of the content, you certainly can sue for defamation, harassment, or another related charge if the content is false and damages your reputation or wellbeing. Even if it’s true.
2. What's the difference between hateful content and free speech?
There are limitations to free speech. Hateful content that incites violence, promotes discrimination, or poses a direct threat often falls outside protected speech.
3. Where does digital defamation usually occur?
a. Social Media Platforms (Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube)
b. Forum Sites and Message Boards (Reddit, Quora)
c. Search Engine Platforms (Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo)
d. Blogs (WordPress, Shopify, Wix, SquareSpace)
e. News Outlets (DailyMail, Buzzfeed, Washington Post)
f. Directories and Review Platforms (Yelp, Angi, BBB, Glassdoor)
4. What are the top 5 most common defenses to internet defamation?
a. Truth: If the statement made online is factual and can be proven true, it cannot be stated “defamatory”, no matter how damaging or unflattering it may appear. However, this does not mean that it cannot be removed from the internet. See how our attorneys can remove hateful content for you.
b. Opinion: A statement can be protected if it can be demonstrated to be a genuine expression of opinion rather than a fact. The statement here purely depends on context.
c. Privilege: Certain statements, such as those made during judicial proceedings or by government officials in their official capacities, are protected, even if they might otherwise be considered defamatory.
d. Retraction: In some jurisdictions, retracting or correcting a potentially defamatory statement can serve as a defense or lead to reduced damages in a defamation lawsuit.
e. Consent: If the subject of the statement had given their permission for it to be published, it can be used as a defense against defamation claims.
