Defamation legal advice. Removing defamation from the internet

If the defamation against you was first published after the first of January 2014 and you do not have sufficient identifying information about the poster of the defamation to enable you to take the matter up with them, then website operator will need to get you this information and if they can't then they might need to take the defamatory post down.

This makes it difficult for posters of defamation on the internet to post defamation whilst concealing their identity. In the majority of cases a responsible UK based website operator will remove the defamatory comments shortly after receiving a properly written Notice of Complaint (Notice of Complaint Regulation 2 and section 5(6) (a) to (c) of the Defamation Act 2013).

Upon receipt of the Notice of Complaint, to be able to successfully defend legal action for defamation, the operator must contact the poster within 2 business days and obtain their full name and postal address. If the operator is not able to obtain this information from the poster, they will have a choice of either removing the defamatory comment from their website or become liable for defamation.

Naturally, most website operators choose to remove the defamatory post altogether rather than have to defend its truthfulness at court.

If the website operator can provide you with the full name and postal address of the poster of the defamation against you, the operator will not be obliged to remove the defamatory post and will have a defence to legal action for defamation. In this case, our strategy will focus on compelling poster to remove the defamatory post.