A Reddit or forum thread ranking for your name

On Reddit, two layers apply. Volunteer moderators run each community under its own rules, and Reddit itself enforces sitewide rules. Those include a ban on posting someone's personal information and a ban on harassment. A report that names the specific rule a post breaks is the fastest route there is. Other forums work the same way: the forum's operator decides under its own terms.

Legal complaints are a separate track. Reddit says it evaluates requests from private parties against local and international law, and where content appears to break local law it may restrict access in that country rather than remove it everywhere. A successful Australian request can therefore leave the thread visible to people searching from overseas.

Defamation needs more than an unflattering post. Under section 10A of the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW) and its equivalents in other states, a person must show the publication caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to their reputation. A business is in a weaker position: under the uniform laws, for example section 9 of Queensland's Defamation Act 2005, most corporations have no cause of action, although a named director or owner may have their own.

The law has also moved towards the people who run online platforms. In New South Wales and the ACT, reforms that commenced on 1 July 2024 treat forum administrators and platforms as digital intermediaries. To rely on the new innocent dissemination defence, a forum administrator needs an easy way for people to complain, and an intermediary that does not remove complained-of content within seven days can lose the defence. Courts can also order intermediaries that are not party to the proceedings to take defamatory content down. How this applies to a particular thread is a question for your lawyer.

The eSafety Commissioner's adult cyber abuse scheme covers serious abuse intended to cause serious harm. eSafety explains that it does not cover defamation, and that harm which is purely reputational does not meet its threshold. If a thread includes threats against you, eSafety and the police come first, not a reputation firm.

Usually, yes. Forum threads tend to carry less authority than established news sites, which means stronger pages can outrank them with less effort than entrenched news coverage needs. The work is the same in kind: search suppression builds and strengthens pages you own or control, such as professional profiles, a personal or business site and factual articles, until they outrank the thread for the searches that matter.

Threads about a business are common, and they often rank for the business name alongside news stories and old records. Our page on search results for your business name covers the pages a business can build. If a post makes false claims, the defamatory content page sets out the legal pathway, and the search content service covers how we run removal requests and suppression together.

Platform rules change, and defamation law differs between the states and territories. This page is general information, not legal advice. Speak to a lawyer about your own matter.