Online Harassment and Smear Campaigns

Online harassment of your business and its directors or employees is, unfortunately, surprisingly common. It can feel endless and impossible to avoid if you are unfortunate enough to become a target. On some platforms, trolling can get in the way of your interactions with your customers and professional peers, as well as make it harder to reach your target customer base.

Engaging with harassment online may make it worse, and users on some online platforms are completely anonymous, making it hard to hold them accountable.

Harassment and smear campaigns are not only undertaken by social media users. You may find yourself the target of a smear campaign by a blog, a newspaper or another media institution, resulting in significant damage to your reputation.

Our Media and Reputation Management team will guide you through the options available to you. We have experience using multiple legal routes to shut down conduct as soon as possible, and our specialist team has particular expertise in online trolling and smear campaigns.

To speak to a solicitor if you have been targeted by online harassment or a smear campaign, contact JMW today by calling 0345 872 6666, or by filling in our online enquiry form to request a call back.

How Can JMW Help with Online Harassment and Smear Campaigns?

Our first priority in ongoing harassment cases is to bring the campaign to an end. That may be through exploring urgent injunctive relief, ensuring that people who continue to engage in harassing conduct against you may be subject to a court order.

You should collect evidence, including screenshots of any posts or messages that users might later try to delete or that may disappear.

We can discuss with you the legal options to protect yourself, your business and employees to end the online campaign.

If you receive threatening messages, where you may fear for your personal safety, you should report these to the police. Threats of harm are usually treated more seriously than trolling and come with higher penalties for those who engage in this type of conduct.

What Are Some Examples of Online Harassment?

The following are examples of conduct that you may experience that could fall to online harassment:

• An anonymous troll repeatedly posting false or derogatory comments on a forum that attacks one of your directors
• A Twitter user repeatedly sending abusive and threatening tweets
• A threat to publish private and intimate information or images online

What Potential Claims Arise From the Harassment of Our Business and Our Employees?

The harassment of your directors or employees may breach the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Action can be taken against those who are in breach of this legislation in both the civil and criminal courts. Harassment can also amount to defamation, breach of data rights or other infringements of individuals’ legal rights, depending on the type of conduct experienced.

You may find that the harassment campaign ends on its own, but there may still be defamatory or other abusive statements displayed on online platforms. If these statements are untrue, or call your reputation into question, it is important to have them removed so that you do not continue to suffer negative effects.

Cyber and Information Security

In a post-digital era, technology is at the core of any business. As well as presenting many exciting new opportunities to connect with your customer base and to increase brand awareness, it also creates risks including cyber-enabled fraud, hacking or message interception.

Cyber disputes take many forms and often fall under the umbrella of ‘harassment’. Some internet trolls or cyber bullies mistakenly believe they can say or do what they want online; however, everyone has the legal right to be free from harassment, personal attack and unjustified intrusion on their private lives, including in their online activity.

The anonymity that the internet offers has opened up the world to different and potentially more extreme forms of harassment. Our Media and Reputation Management team can assist you in:

• Identifying anonymous trolls, including by obtaining a court order requiring a platform host to disclose information to identify them
• Online harassment and cyberbullying
• Revenge pornography (‘disclosure of private sexual images without consent’)
• Deepfakes (use of technology to depict your likeness in a video or image of another person)