227Recovering from Online Smears
If you are sufficiently notable to merit an article, you may not be
able to get the article removed entirely. For example, if you have been
involved in a high-profile news incident or have achieved some de-
gree of national fame (or notoriety), Wikipedia editors will be un-
likely to delete the entire article. But, you may still be able to remove
false smears and allegations from the article. If the smear is obviously
vandalism (for example, an all-caps “JOE SMITH IS A H8R” in the
middle of an otherwise factual article) then you may remove it your-
self. Create a Wikipedia account (be honest and use your own
name), click the “Edit” button on the page you want to fix, and re-
move the vandalism.
3
There is a guide for new editors that walks you
step by step through the editing process here: http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page . You may also remove false
allegations about you that are not backed up by any sources: Because
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, all facts must be verified by links to
outside sources. If there is a false allegation in a Wikipedia article
about you, you may immediately remove it if there is no link to a re-
liable outside source.
4
But, use extreme caution if you attempt to remove false informa-
tion that has a link to an outside source, even if you know that the
outside source is completely and obviously wrong. Wikipedia policies
make it difficult for people to make serious edits on articles about
themselves. Self-edits will draw the ire of administrators and may re-
sult in your account being locked and your changes being undone.
When you make the change to the article, remove the false content
and explain why in the “talk” page for the article; give links to verifiable
and reliable sources that show why the information is false. Do not
add any new positive content about yourself; it is sure to look biased.
If another editor undoes your changes, do not start an “edit war” where
two (or more) editors repeatedly undo each others’ changes. Instead,
you may need to seek administrative help. The fastest way to achieve
resolution is to post a note on the “Biographies of Living People” no-
ticeboard with a clear and concise explanation of why the article is
wrong, along with verifiable and reliable outside sources to support
Wild West 2.0228
your claims. Do not make allegations about other editors, do not start
a personal conflict, and do not be drawn into the personal battles that
are an inevitable part of collaborative editing at a site like Wikipedia.
Instead, be calm and rational, and use objective facts to help fix your
problem. If all else fails, you may contact the Wikipedia legal depart-
ment, but this is an absolute last resort and will foreclose all other
forms of resolution, many of which may be faster and easier.
There are also many other Wikipedia policies that can be used to
remove false information about you, but these policies (and their en-
forcement) are constantly shifting. You may need to resort to expert
help if you believe that your Wikipedia entry is fatally flawed but the
problem is more complex than just obvious vandalism. If possible,
commit to professional help before you try to edit yourself; once you
have edited yourself, you may draw more attention to the page, and
administrators may be suspicious of any future edits that attempt to
fix its content.
In the end, you may not be able to completely remove all false in-
formation if there are outside sources that appear to support it (no
matter how wrong those outside sources may be). In that case, your
best bet may be to balance the false negative information with truthful
positive information. Doing so will make the negative information less
noticeable and may prevent other people from relying on the negative
information.
Use these same principles to guide your efforts to resolve other
issues that arise when your name appears on other pages within
Wikipedia, such as in articles about news events and companies. If
your name is not essential to the story, you may be able to have it re-
moved on the basis of the “notability” criteria. If your name appears
only as a result of vandalism (“Joe Smith stole my wallet” in the mid-
dle of a completely unrelated article), you may remove it yourself.
Use extreme caution when editing information related to yourself
that is not obvious vandalism; you may draw the ire of editors who
are constantly on the watch for changes that attempt to hide true
information.
Yo u s h o u l d never create a Wikipedia article about yourself or add
substantially to one that has been posted. No matter how objective
you try to be, your edits will inevitably be seen as biased by other ed-
itors. Your edits may be undone, your account may be locked, and the
page that you were attempting to fix may even be tagged as “biased.”
Nothing good can come of such an effort. Instead, if you must, pro-
vide information on the article’s “talk” page that other editors may
choose to integrate into the article. You can provide positive re-
sources (such as positive news stories) that can help other editors
create a balanced profile of you.
Should I Sue My Attacker?
When faced with extreme online defamation, some people consider
a lawsuit against their attackers. After all, the standards for defama-
tion online are the same as those that apply offline: if you are a pri-
vate individual and an attacker has maliciously spread a hurtful lie
about you, the attacker may be liable for defamation. But, as many
recent cases have shown, the legal process is slow and often does not
lead to a satisfactory resolution. Online defamation is much harder
to solve through legal action than is traditional libel by a newspaper
or slander by a TV station.
No book can substitute for the advice of a licensed lawyer prac-
ticing in your jurisdiction, who will be aware of local laws that may
impact your case. There are, however, several common themes that
apply across all jurisdictions.
First, it is often difficult to find the attacker. Many online attack-
ers hide behind a pseudonym or even create their attacks completely
anonymously. In some cases, it may be possible to track down a pseu-
donymous or anonymous attacker through technical means, such as by
using electronic “fingerprints” to try to match an IP address to an ISP
subscriber. But, trying to play whodunit online can be as hard as solv-
ing real-world crimes with no eyewitnesses; sometimes electronic fin-
gerprints lead to a suspect, but other times the trail runs cold. It may
Recovering from Online Smears 22 9
take a substantial investment in time, energy, and money to begin the
process of tracking down a suspect, just to find out that the person has
disappeared into the online shadows.
Second, a lawsuit may not bring resolution even if you find the
person who defamed you. The person you sue may be broke (“judg-
ment-proof,” in the jargon of lawyers) and unable to pay a single dol-
lar in damages. She also may not be able to remove or fix the smears
she created; it may be too late to put the genie back in the bottle.
Once a smear goes online, it often takes on a life of its own outside
the control of the original attacker. Even if the original attacker
wants to help fix the problem, it may be too late to take it back: the
smear may have been copied-and-pasted by bloggers, linked to from
Web discussion forums, or picked up by Google Cache, or it may
have found a permanent home in the Internet Archive. The act of su-
ing may even make the problem worse: The so-called Streisand Effect
describes the fact that attempts to remove content from the Internet
often inspire other bloggers to copy the content and make it more
prominent. In these cases, there is nothing that the attacker can do to
take the content back; it is out of her control. The attacker cannot
force Google to remove links to the smear and often cannot force
other bloggers to remove it.
Third, lawsuits often take years to finish. Justice may be blind,
but it is also incredibly slow. Filing a lawsuit can create years of stress
before reaching a resolution, and it may require an extensive com-
mitment of time or money from you to support your lawyers.
On the other hand, there is a strong sense of vindication that
comes from winning in court, and a victory in court can serve as
proof that the smears are inaccurate. News coverage of your victory
will often displace the false negative content in Google results. You
will also be helping to clean up the Internet and to make it clear to
online bullies and harassers that their conduct will not be tolerated.
To give just one example, education counselor Sue Scheff won a
multimillion-dollar lawsuit against an online harasser. She and In-
ternet expert John Dozier wrote about the lawsuit and the addi-
230 Wild West 2.0
tional steps she took to clear her reputation in the book Google
Bomb.
5
Discuss your situation with a licensed attorney with experience
in Internet-based defamation. In some situations, a lawsuit may be a
viable part of a larger strategy to manage online defamation—the
lawsuit may lead to direct redress, and it may also send a very strong
signal that you believe the attack to be entirely false and are willing
to go to court to prove it. This strategy is especially powerful when
you can objectively disprove the content of the attack: News re-
porters looking for an Internet story may be able to verify the falsity
of the attack against you and help spread the word, and you can help
echo their words by creating your own positive content. Ask your
lawyer what the chances of success legally are, and then consider
what the reputation effect might be. A lawsuit alone is rarely enough
to solve an online reputation problem, but it may be a part of a suc-
cessful strategy.
Why Can’t I Sue Google?
Many people who have been attacked online are angry at Google for
linking to an obviously false attack. But, unfortunately, there is noth-
ing that can be done under current U.S. law. No search engine has
ever been held liable in the United States for defamation because it
has linked to online attacks. No Web discussion forum or blog host
(such as Google’s Blogspot or the independent site LiveJournal) has
been held liable for attacks posted by other users on its site. This sit-
uation is a sharp contrast from that pertaining to offline law, where
newspapers can be held liable for the content of false or defamatory
advertisements that they run.
In the United States, the difference is largely the result of a fed-
eral law known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act
of 1996. So far, U.S. courts have held that the law completely ex-
empts websites from liability for the actions of their users—includ-
ing defamation and other torts against private individuals. But there
231Recovering from Online Smears
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