Sensitive Legal Material, Unresponsive Content Owner: What are my options?

  • Unknown's avatar
    lousyacorns · Member ·

    Hello,

    There is an article (I don’t link it for fear that visiting it will raise its importance on Google) re-hosted on WordPress that includes rape charges of someone I know that continues to limit his opportunities in life, in joining faternities or organizations, finding employment, etc. All charges have been dropped and his record expunged; however, this article remains as the top link on Google when you search his name.

    The owners of the original content have removed the article, but the organization that re-hosted it here have not, and I fear they no longer exist. They haven’t updated their page since 2012 and are unresponsive to emails.

    What are my options since simply re-hosting a news article does not violate any of the Terms of Service? Do I have to go through the courts with a defamation claim? Would it better to approach Google and other popular search engines? Could WordPress provide other contact information if I provide more details?

    Thank you

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    Hi there,

    Complaints like this one are not dealt with here on the public support forums. Only Terms of Service Staff have authority in such cases and their authority applies to blogs hosted by WordPress.COM, not to any others.

    Abuse – Freedom of Speech:
    http://en.wordpress.com/freedom-of-speech/
    http://en.wordpress.com/abuse/
    http://en.wordpress.com/complaints/
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/report-blogs/

    Our role is to direct those who post to the relevant support docs like http://en.wordpress.com/abuse/ and request that Support Staff close the thread, as only Terms of Service Staff have authority in these cases.

    Court orders: Cases of defamation and impersonation require a court order before we can take action. Official, signed court orders can be emailed to
    (email visible only to moderators and staff).

    This thread is tagged for closure.

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    Please use the abuse-link @timethief provided above to report the site to our Terms of Service team. They’ll advise you if a court order is required or not.

    As we cannot help with this in the forum I’m going to also close this thread.

  • The topic ‘Sensitive Legal Material, Unresponsive Content Owner: What are my options?’ is closed to new replies.