Tag Archives: Section 230

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Today, when someone wants to know who you are, they may not Google you at all. They may ask ChatGPT. Or Perplexity. Or Microsoft Copilot. And whatever those AI platforms surface about you—accurate or not—becomes their first and sometimes only impression of you.

That is why I have spent the past months substantially rewriting and expanding Reputation Reboot: What Every Business Leader, Rising Star & VIP Needs to Know. I first published this free eBook in 2019. The 2026 AI Edition is not a light refresh. It is a reckoning with how profoundly the search and information landscape has shifted—and what you need to know about it.  As the founder of Reputation Communications—and an expert defamation witness in litigation—I have been working in online reputation management since the industry began.

A Crisis Waiting to Happen

The AI Incident Database had logged over 3,000 incidents of AI mischaracterization of real individuals at the time I wrote this—and that number keeps climbing. The New York Times has called AI-generated composites that sometimes appear with wrong information “Frankenpeople.” I call them a crisis waiting to happen.

What creates this vulnerability? A vacuum. When there is little authoritative information about you published online—information you have created and control—AI systems fill that gap with whatever they can find. Old court filings. Forum posts. Scraped data from sources you never consented to. The less you have published about yourself, the more that gap will be filled by material you would never choose.

What AI Has Done to Search—and Why It Matters to Your Reputation

For decades, online reputation management meant optimizing your presence for Google. We helped clients build high-quality content, earn inbound links from authoritative sources, and push problematic results down the search rankings. Those strategies still matter. But they are no longer sufficient on their own.

AI overviews now appear at the top of nearly half of all Google search results, often summarizing information before the reader ever clicks a single link. Meanwhile, millions of people bypass Google entirely and go straight to AI platforms for answers. This is not a trend. It is a structural shift.

The Stakes Have Never Been Higher

In my work over the past several years, I have consulted on a broad range of reputation crises detailed in Reputation Reboot. Now, the reputation risk landscape includes AI-generated deepfake videos, doxxing campaigns and far more examples that our laws have not caught up to. The Blake Lively lawsuit in late 2024—in which a PR consultant boasted in text messages that “we can bury anyone”—is only the most public example of tactics that are far more common than most people realize.

Boards of directors now rank reputational risk as their largest nonfinancial concern, surpassing cybersecurity and regulatory exposure. And yet most executives still have not taken the most basic proactive steps to protect themselves online.

The single biggest mistake I see is what I have long called “benign neglect.” The work of repairing the damage takes far longer and costs far more than proactive management would have.

What the 2026 Edition Will Give You

This guide is a “what to know” resource more than a step-by-step how-to. My goal is to give you the mental model and the strategic vocabulary to understand what is actually happening with your online reputation—and to help you make informed decisions about how to respond.

Inside the 2026 AI Edition, you will find:

•  A plain-language explanation of how AI platforms learn and where their data about you comes from

•  The legal landscape around online defamation, Section 230, and what “Twibel” means for you

•  Practical tools for protecting your privacy and removing personal data from broker databases

•  A realistic assessment of how long reputation repair takes—and why

•  Crisis management frameworks built for the speed of social media and AI amplification

•  Guidance on building the kind of digital presence that acts as your first line of defense

•  Updated recommendations on platforms, tools, and services—including what I have seen work for real clients

I have been doing this work since 2008, and I have never seen the stakes feel more immediate—or the tools for managing them feel more within reach. AI is not just a threat to your reputation. Understood correctly, it is also an opportunity to ensure that what the world finds when it looks for you is accurate, current, and genuinely representative of who you are.

I hope this guide helps you get there.

 
 
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How to Avoid High-Risk Hires

The New York Times has published a disturbing article that shows how some online reputation damage happens: intentionally.

In A Vast Web of Vengeance, tech reporter Kashmir Hill details how one person spent years creating false, negative posts about more than a hundred people. They have suffered extreme reputation damage due to 1200 defamatory posts that are too unpleasant to print here. In her article, Hill describes “the power of a lone person to destroy countless reputations, aided by platforms like Google that rarely intervene.”

Yes: On the internet, anyone can be impersonated, harassed or the focus of “fake news.” It persists because of the Communications Decency Act Section 230, (CDA 230), a law that protects the platforms that publish such information — publishers like Google, Facebook, Twitter and millions of blogs, forums and websites — against liability for third-party content on their websites.

We have written extensively about the need to update that law.  That includes our interviews with leaders active in the movement to change it, notably:

Dan Shefet, a member of our Advisory Board, who established the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy (AAID), which has lobbied the European Commission to introduce rules to make it easier for others to remove harmful information online.

 Right2Remove, which advocates for “Right to Remove” privacy policy legislation “that allows for the removal of content from Internet platforms that is designed to cause reputational harm to consumers in the United States.”

For more insight on this topic, our blog post  No Right to be Forgotten Here is also relevant.  And be sure to check out, The Case for Bringing the Right to be Forgotten to America.

Here is to more investigative journalism focusing on this important topic, including changing the law that enables such harmful content to remain on the internet forever, or at all.

 
 
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CDA 230

We rarely write about politics.

But President Trump’s attack on the legal loophole that allows online hate speech – Communications Decency Act, Section 230 — caught our attention. In short, he wants to do away with it.

We often lament the presence of the CDA 230, as it is known. In my recent article on Medium, I explain why:

On the internet, any of us can be impersonated, harassed or the focus of “fake news.” It persists because of the Communications Decency Act Section 230, a law that protects the platforms that publish such information — publishers like Google, Facebook, Twitter and millions of blogs, forums, and websites — against liability for third-party content on their websites.

We have helped many clients who have been adversely affected by the type of harassment the CDA 230 permits. So, we have been following this story with much interest. Why would President Trump want to remove that law? One reason: Twitter has been moderating his tweets and flagging content it considers questionable.

The New York Times described his intent:

The executive order that Mr. Trump signed on Thursday seeks to strip liability protection in certain cases for companies like Twitter, Google, and Facebook for the content on their sites, meaning they could face legal jeopardy if they allowed false and defamatory posts.

In another article, Times reporter Daisuke Wakabayashi explained how the CDA 230 works:

…Section 230 shields websites from liability for content created by their users. It permits internet companies to moderate their sites without being on the hook legally for everything they host.

Section 230 has allowed the modern internet to flourish. Sites can moderate content — set their own rules for what is and what is not allowed — without being liable for everything posted by visitors.

…Websites trading in revenge pornography, hate speech or personal information to harass people online receive the same immunity as sites like Wikipedia.

This topic will be in the news for weeks to come. Legal experts think it is unlikely that the CDA 230 can be substantially changed by President Trump’s action.  Our hope, like others who support updating it, is that it can be done through appropriate legislative channels.

Related reading: Removing Content from Google in the U.S.

 
 
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Dan Shefet

Dan Shefet is a Paris-based attorney whose firm, Cabinet Shefet, specializes in internet, intellectual and competition law.  When he forced Google to remove links to defamatory information about him in 2014, the case made worldwide headlines. He has since established the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy (AAID).  AAID is lobbying the European Commission to introduce rules to make it easier for others to remove harmful information online. Its board of directors includes experts and former government representatives in Denmark, Germany and many other countries.

At a recent Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly Session in Strasbourg, AAID’s Motion for Recommendation for the creation of an Internet Ombudsman was supported by 26 parliamentarians and 12 countries. That proposed Ombudsman will qualify content on the Internet as lawful or unlawful by means of a content review procedure. What are your next steps to push this initiative further?

We are very pleased that the values of a fairer and more humane internet reflected in AAID’s Charter is getting increasing support from policy makers and international organisations around the world. We have just welcomed to our Board Bruno Lanvin and Sam Pitroda and are excited to take the next steps to further our values.  Our analysis of both the net’s potential and actual harm to individuals, society (fake news, for instance) and world stability is winning increasing acceptance. Our proposals address a real and growing concern. We are emboldened by the support we have already secured from major international organizations. Our next steps will be to structure these contacts into partnerships that allow us to promote an “Internet of Values”. We plan to appoint local chapters of AAID, organize conferences, nominate Good Will Ambassadors and roll out a global media strategy. Also, we intend to publish a World Wide index on how well other country’s oversight of the internet protects human rights and promotes recognition of rights available to internet users beyond freedom of speech (or rather freedom to speak). Such an index will provide a deeper and truer picture of the protection of rights on the Net. 

With AAID, your goal is to make search engines legally responsible for the information they publish. You have gained tremendous support from European policy makers. Now, you are bringing the debate to America. How can the “Right to be Forgotten” initiative and your larger goals succeed in this land of freedom of speech?

We are staunch supporters of free speech. In our opinion the true meaning of freedom of speech is freedom to speak. Freedom to speak allows one to express their thoughts without muting or harming the ability of another to speak. We believe that this analysis is what the First Amendment essentially protects. It also reflects the common concern our American friends share about the internet becoming a weapon of hatred, incitement, defamation and intolerance. The freedom that is protected by the strong American tradition of free speech is exposed to increased corruption and dilution on the Internet due to the First Amendment’s exclusive and dominant protection. It is also enabled by the Communications Decency Act, Section 230, which governs Internet content in the U.S. and frees website owners from liability for what is posted on their sites. There is no cultural justification for human suffering. On more than one occasion have we seen the moral strength of the American people to do the right thing. We have no doubt that a balanced approach to the protection of human integrity, democracy and stability on the Internet can also be achieved in the US.

You have expressed concern over the lack of knowledge in the U.S. about the legal theory and philosophy behind the “Right to be Forgotten” and the European approach to Internet regulation. Please explain why and what you would like Americans to know or consider.  

The “Right to be Forgotten” is a misnomer. It refers to the right to have your name dereferenced under certain specific conditions. The judgment of the European Court of Justice of 13th May 2014 was — from a technical point view — an answer to a prejudicial question posed by the Court and Data Protection Agency in Madrid relative to the interpretation of the EU Directive 1995/46 (which has since been replaced by a Regulation on Data Privacy). In other words, the judgement reflects a pure legal analysis. However, this judgement has been misconstrued as conferring a right to anyone to have information about him/her deleted on an almost arbitrary basis thus infringing the right of the public to access information and thereby imposing a restriction on freedom of speech. The truth of the matter is that the right to be forgotten is a right to preserve personal integrity in a world where your very existence is a function of what the net says about you. It is the first effective legal protection of the individual against mob innuendo, rumor, and falsehoods.  It is the only defense provided against invisible and hitherto invincible forces when your life has turned into despair and daily suffering. It is not a right to have well-founded criticism about you deleted or suppressed.

You have spoken extensively about how the lawlessness, persecution of individuals and lack of accountability on the internet leads to human suffering. What is your advice to anyone facing such a situation? Are there any preventive steps you recommend?  

I call upon victims of cyber persecution to write us at AAID. The only way to deal effectively with the problem is by putting pressure on policymakers and secure public support. Remember that the might of the internet Titans is built on clicks. If public opinion no longer supports their failure to recognize the value of us all as human beings (and not just big data statistics), those clicks may just go in another direction.

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A French lawyer born in Denmark, Dan Shefet holds a Philosophy Degree and a Law Degree from the University of Copenhagen. Specializing in European Law, Competition Law as well as Human Rights in general and in the IT environment in particular, he participates in conferences in academic venues on IT Law, Data Privacy and Human Rights on the internet. In 2014 he founded the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy (AAID) the main objective of which is to introduce a general principle of accountability on the internet in order to secure the protection of human integrity. He serves as an Individual Specialist to UNESCO.

This is the fourteenth in a series of interviews with experts whose work relates to online reputation management.

Related topics:  

Critics Claim Communications Decency Act Enables Human Trafficking  

Removing Content from Google in the U.S.  

Online Reputations Hampered by Outdated Law