Recognize, Document, Remove, Prevent
There's no shortcut that skips straight to "make it go away," and anyone who promises one is being dishonest with you. What actually works, in almost every situation I see, is working through these four stages in roughly this order.
Recognize It
Understand whether what you're seeing legally qualifies as defamation, or is protected opinion, and where it fits among common situations.
2Document It
Preserve screenshots, URLs, timestamps, and a timeline before the content is edited, deleted, or made inaccessible.
3Remove or Suppress It
Pursue platform removal, search suppression, and, where appropriate, formal legal steps.
4Prevent It
Put ongoing monitoring and basic protective habits in place so it's harder for this to happen again.
Recognize It
Not everything upsetting that gets said about someone online is legally defamatory, and that distinction matters before you invest time and money in a response. Genuine opinions, harsh but honest reviews, and statements that are substantially true are generally protected, even when they're unpleasant to read. Defamation requires a false statement of fact, communicated to someone else, that damages a reputation.
Document It
Content on social media and review platforms can be deleted, edited, or made inaccessible within hours, sometimes within minutes of the poster realizing there might be consequences. Documentation has to happen early and has to be done correctly — full-page screenshots with visible URLs and timestamps, not cropped images that could have come from anywhere.
Remove or Suppress It
Depending on the platform and the content, removal might come through a platform's own reporting process, a formal legal request, or a court order. Where removal genuinely isn't realistic, search suppression — building up enough accurate, positive content that the defamatory material stops being the first thing someone sees — is often the more practical path.
Prevent It
Once the immediate situation is under control, a handful of ongoing habits — ongoing monitoring, basic privacy and security hygiene, and a baseline of accurate, positive content about you or your business — make it meaningfully less likely you'll be starting this process over again in six months.