Has someone created a negative, false, or defamatory wordpress blog targeting you or your business?
WordPress is a free blogging and web hosting platform that allows users to post content to personal blogs online. The company was launched in 2005 and grew to over 56 million blogs by the end of 2012. Because of its popularity, blogs hosted on wordpress.com tend to rank highly in search engines, especially if they include specific keywords like an individual’s name. Generally a democratized platform for individuals to air thoughts publicly online is a positive thing, and many authors use blogging platforms like WordPress.com to develop a following for their ideas. On some occasions however, individuals seek to misuse WordPress to post negative, false, copyrighted, or defamatory information on the Internet. If this has happened to you, here are several ways to remove WordPress posts.
Before discussing how to remove WordPress posts from search engines and blogs, it is important to clarify the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com is a web hosting service provider and blog platform that is owned and run by a company called Automattic. WordPress.org is free, open source content management software that simplifies maintaining a database driven website. This article deals with removing posts from WordPress.com sites.
The most common scenarios we hear about at Reputation Resolutions with regard to removing WordPress.com posts are based on one of the following three scenarios: A WordPress blog is publishing copyrighted material, someone is using a WordPress blog to impersonate someone else, or someone is utilizing WordPress to defame or otherwise damage someone’s reputation. There are specific strategies to remove a WordPress Blog or Post for each of these scenarios.
Remove WordPress posts due to copyright infringement.
WordPress.com’s parent company, Automattic may remove WordPress posts, blogs, or comments if they are properly notified that a blog is in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The WordPress Terms of Service state the following:
If you believe that material located on or linked to by WordPress.com violates your copyright, you are encouraged to notify Automattic in accordance with Automattic’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) Policy. Automattic will respond to all such notices, including as required or appropriate by removing the infringing material or disabling all links to the infringing material.
Automattic also states that they will terminate paid accounts without providing a refund in the event of repeated offenses. Please do ensure that you are the copyright holder before submitting a DMCA form to Automattic.
Remove WordPress Posts due to User Guidelines Violations.
The decision of whether or not to remove WordPress posts is ultimately at the discretion of Automattic. There are however, user guidelines which clearly state what content will be considered a violation and therefore will be eligible for removal. Specifically, WordPress.com forbids the following.
- Illegal content and conduct
- Intellectual property infringement
- Pornography
- Technologically harmful content
- Impersonation (excluding satire)
- Directly threatening material
- Posting private information
- Advertising (via non-approved channels)
- Hotlinking (serving WordPress content exclusively to third party sites)
- Spam or machine generated content
If any of the above applies to your situation, report the site to Automattic and the content should be removed.
Remove WordPress Posts due to defamation of character.
Unfortunately, it is somewhat common for an individual to take to the Internet in an attempt to destroy someone’s reputation by spreading false, defamatory content online. Occasionally these malicious individuals utilize blogging software like WordPress.com. WordPress.com is completely protected under the Communication Decency Act section 230(c) which states that website owners are not legally responsible for content authored by third parties. WordPress does provide instructions for reporting offensive sites, but if these measures fail you may need to consult an expert or online defamation attorney to remove WordPress posts. To learn more about how Reputation Resolutions has helped individuals remove WordPress posts, call us today at (855)239-5322 or fill out the form below and one of our online reputation specialists will be in touch with you shortly.