Using Digital Tools To Assess and Remedy Online Reputational Damage

Easy and widespread access to digital media not only allows users to publish defamatory statements far and wide with the click of a mouse or the tap of a cell phone screen, those same false statements can also can be instantaneously re-posted, cross-posted, picked up by video, and “liked” or shared on social media channels. They then begin to populate search engine results for searches of the target's name and spread still further. Unlike print media, false statements on the Internet are not limited by either geography or time. To the contrary, they can cause severe, lasting and global reputational harm. Indeed, the European Union Court of Justice has ruled that its citizens can demand that search engines, like Google, delete links to embarrassing personal information ' even if true. (The “right to be forgotten” is in the EC's Proposed Data Protection Directive Update (2012).) As explained further below, although Internet defamation presents unique challenges for its victims, the digital platform also presents unique opportunities to assess and quantify reputational damage stemming from the negative publication and to repair that damage.