Defamation on Blogger
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How to remove defamation from Blogger
For many years, Google blogging platform, Blogger has provided a convenient environment for online defamers, stalkers, harassers and other online abusers who used to slowly oppress their victims. Things have now changed and this is no longer the case.
Why Blogger is a favourable defamation platform
What makes Blogger posts appear so prominently on search results
How do you go about removing a Blogger website
Specific difficulties with having a Blogger post removed from the internet
Why Blogger is a favourable defamation platform
Blogger has been a one of the most favourable defamation platforms for internet users. First, Blogger is like a mini website. Anyone can create an unlimited number of blog sites by creating an unlimited number of abusive or defamatory Blogger websites to maximise which are often linked together with keywords and hyperlinks. Blogger is a free platform which allows internet users to post anonymously. It has excellent SEO system already built in, which helps online defamers spread their abusive messages with little or no effort at all and with very little prospect of ever being identified.
What makes Blogger posts appear so prominently on search results
One of the most frustrating issues for people who are defamed on the blogging platform Blogger is that Google and other search engines tend to display posts from Blogger prominently on internet search results. All Blogger websites contain visible text and invisible “snippets” that describe the website or summarise what each blog post is about. Snippets appear on search results and if they contain defamatory texts or private information they could be hugely damaging and intimidating to the victim.
When requesting that Google remove defamatory or harassing websites from Blogger you must expressly ask that they also remove the snippets, otherwise the defamatory or harassing websites might be deleted or disabled by Google but the defamatory snippets may continue to show on search results.
How do you go about removing a Blogger website
Blogger is one of Google's oldest products. Despite this, Google has never given Blogger much attention so the platform remained very basic in terms of its structure and there is very little support available from Google. Based on our previous experience in having defamatory and abusive content removed from Blogger, in most cases where you can convince Google that the information posted about you on Blogger is harassing or private, Google will agree to have it deleted without the need for a court order.
Because in most cases, the Blogger administrator is anonymous, we would communicate directly with Google, as the website operators (and arguable publishers) of Blogger to have the posts and the blog deleted from the internet. If in the unlikely event Google does not remove the defamatory or private posts from Blogger, we may need to apply for a court order to take action. A court order of this nature might be granted under the Protection from Harassment Act, Data Protection Act, privacy and defamation laws.
Once we have obtained the appropriate court order, we would serve the order on Google who would likely comply and remove all the websites and the snippets from Blogger. Assuming, as we normally expect, Google does respond positively to our correspondence and comply with our request to remove the defamatory or provide information from Blogger, the task of removing the website from the internet could take between 1-12 weeks.
Specific difficulties with having a Blogger post removed from the internet
Removing a blog post from Blogger could be surprisingly difficult. This is because the department at Google, which deals with removing search results, has no authority to delete Blogger posts. The two departments operate from different countries and often when you write to Google about a defamatory Blogger post, your communication is sent to the Google Search department even if it is about Blogger.
Blogger complaints are dealt with by Google staff in California.
Under USA law, Google is under no obligation to delete blog posts from Blogger so when the USA team receives from the UK a request to delete a Blogger post on the grounds of defamation, harassment or breach of privacy, they tend to ignore it because under USA law they are not obliged to take any action. This means that you will often need to go backwards and forwards between the different departments at Google and repeat your reasons for wanting the blog post to be deleted.
Having a blog post deleted from Blogger might not resolve the Google search issue and will not cause images, comments and other elements from the Blogger to be deleted. This can all be achieved by working through the different Google removal systems until all the information you wanted deleted is removed from both the internet and the search results.
