If you find false or negative information about yourself or your business, you can follow legal procedures to have it removed. Online reputation can affect relationships, mental state, and the ability to meet life goals.
The online content could be a video, photo, news article, or fake Google review. You can control your online reputation by doing away with any information that you may consider defamatory. Here are five tips to obtaining a court order to remove content from the internet.
Identify the legal claims and who to sue
Many platforms can only remove unwanted content if they have a court order. It is important to ensure that the case requires a court order before you start pursuing it. Do some homework because court orders are expensive due to litigation requirements.
With many defenses and a lot of filing bureaucracy relating to defamation law, you need to first find out if you have a legal claim against the offender.
Actionable claims could be related to defamation, privacy invasion, infringement of trademark or copyright, and libel.
You may also need to prove the extent of damage as a result of the content posted. For instance, fraudsters may have posted misleading information about a company’s financial position hence misleading the investors. To avoid expensive litigations, you may put in place anti-fraud technology to curb online financial fraud.
Find out where the content is posted
The procedures and rules of removing content from the internet differ from one platform to the other. The content could have been posted to a social media account, an independent website, or a review site. Each platform has unique rules that can determine whether the content can successfully be removed through a court order.
Cyber experts on Australia assignment help say that the rules are related to the type of content being dealt with. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google can remove some content citing violation of their terms and conditions. Others might ask for a court order before removing the content, especially those that deal with illegal content.
Identify who posted the content
The success of using a court order to have the content removed from the internet depends on who posted that content. If the poster is unknown, a court order may be needed to reveal the identity and hold the culprit accountable.
Data security expert with a leading write my college essays site says that some content may not be legally actionable and may only require litigation for it to be removed. For instance, it may be hard to remove content that was published by a news publication. News media enjoy legal protections against defamation and therefore, the content they publish cannot be removed by a court order.
It is important to know who posted the content to avoid wasting time and resources pursuing court orders when it is not necessary. If you can identify the poster, you can ask your defamation attorney to serve them with a desist letter. You can also negotiate with them to voluntarily remove the content.
Focus on winning the lawsuit
Winning a lawsuit to have the content removed requires you to collaborate with your attorney to follow the filing requirements and make some strategic decisions. You can give a notice to the offender and draft a complaint with various considerations in mind.
Your attorney can also advise you on how to explore alternative legal actions. Determine the most beneficial and correct legal jurisdiction to file the case and proof the claim’s elements and the associated damages.
Prove all the legal claim’s elements, such as false statements that appear factual. You may also need to prove that you can be identified by the statement and that you suffered economic or reputational harm as a result of the published statement.
The court order must be effective
The plaintiff’s attorneys are responsible for drafting the court order before it is endorsed by a judge. Internet attorneys recognize that drafting a court order is critical for content to be successfully removed from the internet.
The third parties are likely to honor a court order if it meets the following criteria:
- It identifies the correct website URL or platform where the content is said to have been published.
- It specifically identifies the content to be removed and that it is labeled as defamatory or unlawful.
- It includes a language related to the platform to enable the hosting platform to honor the court order.
- It shows that similar content that may have been published on that platform or elsewhere is covered by the order.
Conclusion
Court orders can facilitate the removal of defamatory content from the internet to prevent further damage. The content posters are required to follow the court orders or risk being held in contempt. Link up with your attorney to guide you on how to go about obtaining the court orders and have the content successfully removed. Even if litigations are costly, the long-term benefits of content removal cannot be overlooked.
