Ask Slashdot: Undoing an Internet Smear Campaign?

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday January 2, 2013 @10:50AM from the time-for-the-more-speech-defense dept.

An anonymous reader writes "My fiancee is a professional writer. She has a great industry reputation and everyone that knows her loves her. But her ex-husband has maintained a number of websites in her name (literally, the URL is her name) that are filled with insane ravings and defamatory content. Have you ever had to deal with an internet smear campaign? The results float to the top of every Google or Bing search of her name. He currently lives abroad and cannot be served with legal papers. His websites are hosted overseas as well, and do not respond to conventional letters or petitions. Because of his freedom of speech rights, few U.S. courts will assert that his websites are truly libelous, either, and it's still difficult to prove any real 'damages' are done by it. Still, we'd like to see them go away. I'm turning to the best community of geeks in the world: how do I deal with this given the limited options at my disposal?"

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Ever heard of free speech by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-02 10:59 · Score: -1, Troll

I think you answered your own post. You said the material is not libelous -- ie: it's true.
So let's rephrase your post with that in mind:

My fiancee's ex-husband posted a bunch of factually correct material about my fiancee. We haven't suffered any damages from it at all, and he's well within his rights to post the material. But I don't like what he's posted, and I don't like him. How can I get this guy to shut up and go away?
Well, here's some advice. You should STFU. If your fiancee doesn't like the information posted, then she should consider changing her behavior.