Victims of Sexual Harassment Will Have Their Reputation Damaged. Here Are 9 Ways to Fix it.

10 min readDec 8, 2017

The Secret Digital “Scarlet Letter” No one Talks About Hurting Sexual Harassment Victims Online Reputation, and How to Repair It

Looking through the nearly six dozen of Harvey Weinstein’s alleged accusers shows startling impacts to their online reputation.

A friend “Kathy” (not her real name) was sexually attacked many years ago when she was just nineteen at college. Given the recent shifts in awareness, when a reporter contacted her to do an article on the perpetrator and the multiple other victims, she felt mixed: happiness because of vindication; despair because her businesses and reputation would be damaged AND linked to the perpetrator.

Coming forward against sexual predators risks reprisals and extreme career damage. Like those left in the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s litany of alleged sexual harassment victims, Kathy was facing personal and professional devastation. But an unexpected result of coming forward, however, is a long lasting impact to the victim’s online reputation.

How does this happen?

When a business, headhunter, agent, existing or prospective client–anyone–conducts a search in Google, the sexual assault appears prominently. This victimizes them again, perhaps in perpetuity, becoming their digital “Scarlet Letter”.

When reviewing the nearly eight dozen of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers, I find that ALL of the women suffered a damaging blow to their web reputation. As others come forward beyond Hollywood, such as in politics, fine art, cable television news, venture capital, comedy, non-profits, Wall Street, etc. are at risk too.

This impact to their online reputation causes severe and potentially long lasting damage. Here’s ways it happen, and importantly, how to fix it.

News and Articles Appear Online Very Quickly

Not surprisingly, articles centered on sexual attack victims or those making inappropriate advances towards women or men appear quickly online. Newspapers and major blogs such as The New York Times, HuffingtonPost, Cnn.com, are highly valued by Google and almost always appear at the very top of search results.

Industry specific sources too carry power and rank highly. The Hollywood Reporter, The Hill, Artforum, BuzzFeed, Abovethelaw.com, Artforum, and others are important in their respective fields. Articles with salacious subjects draw attention, and the more clicks, the more they rise up above the victim’s existing positive sites. This can linger, becoming a permanent and long lasting part of their online reputation.

Their Business Becomes Invisible

One problem many don’t consider is that the victim’s actual business (and thus their potential income) “disappears” online.

Conducting a Google search for the person hurt by the perpetrator shows that these related articles very appear prominently, often at the top and filling the first few pages or more of search results.

When this happens, their name, profession or business links get pushed down off the first page of Google. As a consequence, an accountant, executive, consultant, lawyer, real estate agent, actress, store, writer, business, student, etc. will not be found online.

This can be devastating since it effectively makes their real brand or business invisible, resulting in a damaging loss of sales, clients and trust. This little-known but crucial repercussion can cause long-term and lingering damage to their online reputation.

Smear Campaigns

The perpetrator will mostly likely lash back, creating a smear campaign to discredit the victim. This is horrible, but unfortunately common. This can be in the form of blogs, articles, or social media posts, enlisting help from co-workers, partners, unscrupulous lawyers, private investigators, or even hire people in other countries to generate negative information. This is particularly pernicious and difficult to combat.

Trolls Attack

“Trolls” hide behind the cloak of anonymity, posting deliberately provocative messages to newsgroups, message boards, blogs or on social media platforms, condemning the accuser, slamming their legal representation (if there is one), creating shaming memes or even crafting harshly critical stand-alone websites.

Additionally, it’s not unheard of for unscrupulous competitors to create additional untrue damaging comments. In the age of viral social media, this can proliferate quickly, causing further and continued damage to the victim’s online reputation.

Negative Association Continues

The person hurt by the sexual perpetrator could be linked to them–forever. Even though they have been the one assaulted, the woman or man will continue to be connected to their assailant as articles, tweets, comments and blogs appear afterwards or appear in search results. Even if the subsequent pieces are positive, their names are will still continue to be associated with those who violated them.

New Unrelated Accusers Creates Cycle

As additional people come forward, previously but unrelated victims can be impacted. This creates a snowball effect: as additional revelations occur, new articles are written, and these push down real and legitimate accomplishments of the victim, seemingly wiping out their own vast professional experience. This forces them relive their disturbing ordeal again online.

Impossible to Remove

Once something is online, it’s nearly impossible to remove. This means that the woman’s or man’s life could always be linked to their violator. Published news articles are almost always impossible to remove, even if they are factually wrong or appear libelous. Editors at newspapers ignore nearly all takedown requests, as do webmasters and ISPs. Facebook comments or other social media posts are protected by free speech–so again, no matter how inappropriate or incorrect or they might be–they won’t be removed.

The only exceptions are copyrighted materials such as photos or videos published without the victim’s permission, or content which violates the social media platform’s terms. But these can be long shots and expensive to litigate and remove. Unfortunately, once it’s on the internet, it could be there forever.

The Power of Wikipedia

In looking through the dozens of Harvey Weinstein’s alleged victims, ALL of them are mentioned on Wikipedia, either in related articles or directly on their own dedicated Wikipedia page. This is very hurtful to their online reputation.

Since Google ranks Wikipedia highly, these nearly always appear at the top of search results, and when this happens, continues to link innocent victims with their accused sexual perpetrator. While Wiki articles can be created or modified by anyone, they can also be maintained by an editor if deemed newsworthy–thus making the issue or article nearly impossible to erase. Remember too that you don’t have to be “famous” to have a Wikipedia page since nearly anyone can create one.

Unrelated Sources and Related Reputations Ruined

What if the victim’s name comes up inadvertently from a seemingly unrelated source? Maybe a family member appears in the news, the company they work wins an award, or the lawyer who represented them is victorious in another harassment case.

All of these could continue to keep the related association to the victim alive, hurting their web reputation yet again or entrenching the issue further. As a result too, through no fault of their own, these related businesses or people could have their own web reputation ruined because of their indirect connection to the sexual harassment case.

Those with Less of an Online Presence Are Vulnerable

Someone who has less of a web presence or a non-famous person could have their online reputation ruined more than a famous one. When there are few platforms or websites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Wikipedia, their own website, Facebook, Youtube, college alumni sites, Pinterest, Instagram, Vimeo, IMDB, Avvo, etc., the more likely the negative article will quickly move to the top of searches and stay there.

Also, it depends on the source: the New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC and other prominent sites are much more likely to rise above the victim’s web properties than an article posted on a personal blog or less trafficked website.

9 Ways to Repair a Damaged Online Reputation

It actually is possible to repair a victim’s online reputation. Building positive content, including blogs, articles, sites, will eventually push down the sexual harassment related links. This is a llong term, complex process, however, and requires working with a reputation management specialist. Here are nine tips to help.

1. Acknowledge Feelings and Don’t Respond Directly

If something negative appears, try to ignore or delete it and stay calm. “Why is someone doing this?” or, “I’ll get back at them,” or, “What will happen-I feel violated again,” are common feelings. Have them, but don’t do anything immediately. After a few hours, days or weeks, plan a strategy on how to move forward. DON’T immediately start writing attack message. DON’T just start writing a blog without thinking first. Instead, try to review the facts and get ready for the next step — action.

2. Try to Remove the Bad Content

As mentioned above, once something is online, it’s usually impossible to remove. However, there are some exceptions. Facebook comments or other social media posts might be deleted if they are extreme, reveal personal information such as home addresses or incite violence. Comments responding to blogs or other posts may be taken down if they include home phone numbers, bank accounts and social security numbers. Photos, videos, presentations or articles published without the victim’s permission might be removable due to copyright violation. But in reality, removal is possible only about five percent of the time.

3. Be Proactive

One of the best ways to mitigate the impact of sexual harassment articles from appearing prominently is to build a strong online reputation defense. This includes creating a positive web presence which makes the victim’s online reputation much less susceptible to damaging articles, disparaging remarks, trolls, negative comments or a purposeful smear campaigns.

4. Monitor Search Results

Monitoring an online reputation is useful to identify negative articles quickly, often in real time. Google Alerts is excellent and only requires a Google account.

Start here at this link: http://www.google.com/alerts. To create a Google Alert, enter the victim’s name or business; if it’s a common name, include other attributes, such as, “Jane Smith Attorney”. To immediately receive email notifications, select “As-it-happens” under “How often.” When anything appears, an email alert will be sent.

5. Lockdown Web Platforms

To minimize “trolls” and negative comments, lockdown web properties, such as consider limiting access only to known friends or connections. LinkedIn, Facebook, WordPress and other accounts provide ways to prevent unwanted comments.

Since Twitter is a common way for perpetrators to attack, here are some specific details on how to limit access.

By default, tweets are Public, meaning that they are visible to anyone, whether they have a Twitter account or not. Instead protect tweets so that only followers can see messages and respond to messages. Here’s how:

Go to account settings by clicking on the gear icon at the top right of the Twitter page.
Select Settings from the drop down menu.
Scroll down to the Tweet privacy and Safety section and check the box next to Protect your Tweets.
Click the blue Save button at the bottom of the page and enter your password when prompted to confirm the change.

6. Build Them; Don’t Delete Platforms

Hiding online is not an option. It might might seem appropriate to delete existing platforms and social media accounts to erase a damaged web presence, but this only makes the negative predatory links stand out or jump to the top of searches.

Instead, create or update sites, such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, Youtube, Crunchbase, Pinterest, Instagram, Google Plus, Vimeo, etc. Be sure to complete every field in the profile; have a complete bio; update other required sections; add a good photo; and most importantly, add links back to your website.

Then, share everything on social media (well, nearly everything).

Promote content — blog posts, new sites, articles and press releases — by Tweeting daily; posting on Facebook once a day; and by adding content on LinkedIn weekly. Create industry-specific sites. If the victim is in film, use IMDB.com; if a lawyer, claim an Avvo.com profile; for financial professions, use Crunchbase, etc.

7. Create New Content

Write blogs posts frequently but stay clear of controversy. Definitely avoid mentioning the harasser, the incident or responding to others since this will only make the issue more prominent online. Instead, write comments focused on topics that solve a common industry problem or an important news event. Sharing on sites such as Medium.com are very helpful in online reputation repair. Keep focused on offering solutions and giving away good information; avoid overt selling.

8. Report Bad Behavior

If bad behavior, negative comments, or personal attacks occur, report them.

To stop harassing messages on Twitter: https://support.twitter.com/articles/15789

If the tweet is abusive, breaches privacy, or has harassing and violent threats: https://support.twitter.com/articles/15789.

Also, try these other resources:

9. Work with Reputation Management Management Specialist

Consider working with an online reputation management specialist to repair the damage. A good reputation manager is hands-on and focused on customized solutions since it’s very important to be mindful of potential online “landmines”, sensitive topics and retaliation by trolls.

It’s crucial to start by conducting a thorough research of the victim and their business, including identifying all existing articles and links–both good and bad. It’s a long-term process. An average reputation repair can take six to twelve months, depending on the number of links, their power and position in Google searches. Costs reflect this arduous process–unfortunately, there is no magic delete button. Consider having the online reputation repair included in the legal settlement, if there is one.

Bottom Line

There are many devastating and long lasting scars that sexual predators force on their victims. Unfortunately, when women and men step forward, reprisals or reputation damage follows, and the devastation spreads online. But if it occurs, there are ways to repair damage to their online reputation.

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If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at Recover Reputation