Most takedown fights are decided before the legal letter is drafted
My view is simple: if harmful content is online, your first move should usually not be a defamation threat. The first 24 hours matter more than the first solicitor’s letter, because once posts are edited, deleted, mirrored or indexed elsewhere, you have made the job harder.
The common mistake is obvious. People search for “defamation”, fire off an angry email to a newsroom, Google, Instagram or a review site, and say the material is false and damaging. That often achieves very little. Google usually does not remove search results just because content is said to be defamatory. Meta does not run a court. Review platforms apply their own content rules. And in Australia, a defamation claim has its own pre-litigation process under the Defamation Act 2005 model provisions adopted across the States and Territories, including the concerns notice regime and the serious harm threshold introduced by the 2021 reforms.
That is why I tell people to begin with evidence, identity, platform and pathway. If you need help doing that quickly, start at takedown.net.au.
What to do in the first 24 hours
If the content is false, abusive, fake, impersonating you, or exposing personal information, do these things in order.
- Preserve the evidence. Capture the full URL, the date, the account name, the handle, and screenshots showing the whole page. Include comments, profile details, star rating, map listing and search result snippet where relevant. Save the source page as a PDF if you can. If a video is involved, capture the caption, account name, comments and visible date.
- Record where the harm is occurring. Is it a Google Business Profile review, a Facebook page, an Instagram account, a TikTok account, a website article, a forum post, a Trustpilot review, or a search result showing old content?
- Work out the best removal ground. Is this impersonation? Unauthorised disclosure of personal information? Non-consensual intimate material? Online abuse targeted at an adult? Cyberbullying targeted at a child? A fake review? Copyright misuse of your photo? A doxxing post? A fake business profile? Those are different channels.
- Check whether the account or page breaches a platform rule. This is usually faster than arguing abstract reputational damage.
- Do not tip off the poster too early if account evidence may disappear. Preserve first. Report second. Threaten later if necessary.
This is general information, not legal advice.
The counter-intuitive point: “defamation” is often the slow lane
Reasonable people disagree on this, but I will say it plainly: in many online matters, “defamation” is a poor first label.
Why? Because platforms are not courts, and because many harmful posts are removable without proving all the elements of defamation. If someone has created an account pretending to be you or your business, the cleanest route is often impersonation. If a post publishes your mobile number, home address or bank details, the stronger route may be privacy, safety or doxxing-related policy. If a review is posted by someone who was never a customer, use the site’s fake review or conflict of interest process. If a Google result is surfacing old or irrelevant personal content, the issue may be the source page, not Google itself.
Even where defamation is real, Australian law now requires more than wounded feelings. The serious harm threshold matters. Before many defamation proceedings can properly progress, serious harm to reputation must be established. There is also a 1-year limitation period for defamation, running from first publication in the usual case, although courts have a limited power to extend time in some circumstances.
None of that means defamation law is unimportant. It means you should not waste the first day using the slowest tool.
Use the right lane for the right problem
Impersonation accounts
If the account is pretending to be you, your business, a director or a family member, report it as impersonation through the platform’s in-platform reporting channel. Your report works better when it includes:
- the exact account URL or handle
- the name being impersonated
- a link to the real profile or business website
- a short statement that the account is unauthorised and likely to mislead
- evidence of the real identity or business ownership
Do not bury the lead. “This account is impersonating our registered business and is not authorised by us” is better than three paragraphs about emotional distress.
Fake reviews
Google Business Profile reviews and other review-site complaints succeed more often when you focus on policy breaches. Ask: was the reviewer ever a customer? Is the review about the wrong business? Is there abusive content, threats, hate, personal information, or obvious coordination? If yes, say so directly and provide proof where possible.
What not to do: reply publicly with private transaction details. That can create a second problem. Keep your public response short and calm. Save the detail for the platform dispute channel.
Copy this: “We request removal of this review because the reviewer is not identifiable in our client or transaction records, and the content appears to be false and misleading. The review also contains [abusive/personal/confidential] material contrary to platform policy. Please investigate and remove.”
Harmful Google results
Google is a search engine, not usually the original publisher. That distinction matters. If the source article, forum page or image remains live, the best result often comes from removing or editing the source first. Then you can deal with search visibility issues. If the source page is gone but the result remains cached, that is a different problem.
Shane St Reynolds has long argued that people waste time yelling at the index when the source is still standing.
Adult abuse, image-based abuse and child cyberbullying
Australians have a regulator that many people still ignore: the eSafety Commissioner. This is not a niche option. It is often the correct option.
The eSafety Commissioner can deal with several forms of serious online harm, including:
- cyberbullying material targeted at an Australian child
- adult cyber abuse
- image-based abuse, including sharing intimate images without consent or threats to share them
- certain seriously harmful online content under the Online Safety framework
Do not assume a platform report is enough. If the content fits an eSafety scheme, use it. Timing matters because some pathways expect that platform reporting has been tried first, unless there is a good reason not to wait.
A practical decision test before you press “send”
Use this five-question test. If you cannot answer these questions, your first request is probably not ready.
- Who is the actual publisher? The platform, the account holder, the review site, the website owner, or all of them?
- What exact rule or law is engaged? Defamation, impersonation, privacy exposure, fake review policy, adult cyber abuse, child cyberbullying, image-based abuse?
- What proof do you have? Screenshots, transaction records, ASIC company extract, ABN details, trade mark, ID, prior account history, police event number if relevant.
- What is the fastest realistic remedy? Remove the post, suspend the account, de-index a result, edit the review, or preserve evidence for a later concerns notice?
- What is the deadline risk? Defamation has a 1-year limitation period. Evidence can disappear far sooner.
When a concerns notice matters — and when it does not
Under the Australian defamation reforms, a concerns notice is a serious document, not a tantrum in legal formatting. It should identify the imputations complained of, the publication details, and the harm said to be caused, and it usually precedes any offer to make amends process.
But here is the mistake I see: people send a concerns notice to a platform where an internal impersonation or fake-review report would have been faster and cheaper. Or they send a sloppy concerns notice before preserving the page properly. Or they threaten everyone in the chain without working out who actually controls the content.
If you are dealing with a publisher that is capable of taking legal risk seriously, a well-drafted concerns notice can be important. If you are dealing with a throwaway social account, the better early move may be platform enforcement, eSafety, identity verification and evidence preservation.
Documents that improve your odds
You do not need a 20-page affidavit for every online complaint. You do need documents that fit the issue.
- For business impersonation: ASIC company extract, ABN details, website link, proof of trading name usage.
- For fake reviews: booking records, customer database search result, invoice records, staff roster, site visit logs.
- For personal impersonation: ID and links to genuine profiles.
- For privacy exposure: screenshot showing the phone number, address, email, licence plate or other personal data.
- For abuse complaints: timestamps, URLs, screenshots of the post and comments, and prior reporting references.
If the harm intersects with broader reputational, legal or media issues, I also suggest reading work on shanereynolds.com.au and getting proper advice early rather than after the content has spread. If the attack is bound up with a commercial dispute, funding issue or business pressure, the strategic side can matter as much as the legal side, which is why related commercial work through Poseidon Finance sometimes intersects with reputation triage.
The blunt rule: preserve, classify, then strike
The first request usually fails because it is emotional, vague and sent to the wrong endpoint. A stronger approach is mechanical.
Preserve the evidence. Classify the harm. Pick the correct removal lane. Use the platform’s own rule language. Escalate to the eSafety Commissioner where the content fits that framework. Keep defamation in reserve where it belongs, and use a proper concerns notice when that is the right instrument.
That is how you reduce the life of harmful content online. Not by sending a dramatic email with “urgent defamation” in the subject line.
Get the takedown moving properly
Start with takedown.net.au if you need defamatory content, fake reviews, harmful Google results or impersonation accounts dealt with properly.
To book a consultation, use shanestreynolds.com/contact, email [email protected] or call 08 6263 6236.