Protect your reputation from anonymous sources

Protect your reputation from anonymous sources

What Do you do when someone you don’t know is making up stories about you online?  What if hackers wanted to say negative things about you online?  After all, if hackers can shut down Sony Entertainment, it seems obvious an anonymous hacker could easily add bad information. What is scarier is with freedom of speech, you don’t have to be a sophisticated hacker to ruin someones reputation with a click of the hand. How you protect your reputation from anonymous sources

In the United States, the right to speak anonymously online is protected by the First Amendment and various other laws.  Defamation of character and reputation are intertwined.  In an age where anonymous people can post negative information that is fabricated we examine how you protect your reputation from anonymous sources. Someone wants revenge so they go online and make up fake information about you online what can you do especially if you don’t know who they are?  If an anonymous person can go online hurting your reputation what can you do to prove someone wrote negative information about you online? And how can you protect your reputation from anonymous sources?

Defamation of character has been a longstanding issue for many people all around the country.

Defamation of character has three main characteristics: First, the information written is false and not accurate.  Second, the information written was intentionally written to slander or destroy reputation. Lastly, the new reputation caused financial loss. Defamation of character is not articles that are posted about accusations. When someone says John Doe was accused of bribing a police officer, if that information is accurate, it is in fact not defamation of character.  It is truthful because you were in fact ‘accused’ of that crime.

Take for instance a client of Repair Bad Reputation. We will call him George in order to protect his identity. George had someone go online and post all these negative statements about him that were completely made up. George thinks he might know who posted this information, maybe an ex- girlfriend or a fired employee, but he can’t prove who this person is.  Online communities were built on social media sites, micro sites were launched dedicated to saying terrible things, and blogs that ranked high were written anonymously.  A Ripoff Report, yelp reviews, google reviews, and so much more.  How do you protect your reputation from anonymous sources?

Recently, the world of defamation of character has new meaning with the advent of the internet. While this is allowing the general public to offer guidance and reviews when it comes to doing business with companies on a daily basis, it can also be a breeding ground for lawsuits and defamation. In the past, defamation lawsuits were usually reserved for journalists and professional prints. However, now, these lawsuits are quickly expanding to the general public as well. With sites like Yelp and Angie’s List, it is simple for people to post negative things about companies online, even if they are not true.

Since it is so difficult to prove, many companies have decided to go a different route when fighting defamation online. For example, one company found themselves under attack by an outraged individual who went as far as developing websites and a hate campaign that was intended to bring down the reputation of the company.

With sites like Yelp and Angie’s List, it is simple for people to post negative things about companies online, even if they are not true.  Furthermore, sites like ripoffreport.com, While these items are great tools for consumers to share feedback and gather information, they are also a way for them to say things about companies and individuals that are not true because they are angry about something that has not occurred. When this happens, many businesses decide to sue the person who made the untrue comments about them.  But what happens if you don’t know who the person is. How do you protect your reputation from anonymous sources?

In fact, there has recently been a great increase of lawsuits regarding the defamation over the internet in recent years. Courts have determined that websites like Yelp and Angie’s list are not liable for the things that are put on their pages, but the same cannot be said regarding their users.

As with any defamation case, it is up to the person bringing the case to prove that the person being sued intended for malice to be present. This means that there must be proof that the item that was written is not true and that the person who wrote it meant to cause harm to the one that it was written about.

Proving this can be a difficult thing to do, even when the item was printed in a traditional manner. With the internet, this becomes even more difficult. One of the most difficult things about online defamation is determining who wrote the comment to begin with.

How you protect your reputation from anonymous sources

One of the great things about the internet is that it is easy to share information with the world. However, when you are a business or an individual who is looking to keep your reputation in good health, this can also be a very bad thing if someone posts something negative about you online. What do you do when someone posts fake reviews about your company online? When review sites matter so much how do you protect yourself from fake reviews?

When something is said about you, it can easily be spread from one person to the next until the trail to the original writer becomes so cold that it is impossible to find. This is one of the major things that face defamation lawsuits today. However, it is possible to eventually track the comments origin through IP addresses in order to find the original source.

However, in order to fight this, the company posting the events, as they saw them, in their own words on their website and encouraged their employees to do the same. Because of this, they were able to bring their rankings far above that of the person who had posted the negative comment and eventually the attack ended.

While defamation can be extremely damaging to a company or individual and is illegal, it can also be extremely difficult to prove. It also is difficult to gain much from suing due to defamation because when courts force individuals to make changes to their reviews; this is considered a violation of free speech.

One of the best ways to battle against online defamation is to have an excellent reputation management plan. When you are unable to fight the information, due to it being difficult to prove, you will still be able to force the negative comments further down in the search engine results. In order to aid you in this process, be sure to hire an excellent reputation management company so that you will have a better chance of the strategy that you develop of being a success.