The Google Effect

As tired journalists and copywriters like to repeat: we live in unprecedented times.

It wasn’t too long ago that our transgressions remained safely buried in the past, unless one was unlucky enough to have a neighbour or acquaintance spill the tea. Prospective employers, new friends and fellow parents at the school gates would have had to dig through newspaper archives to unearth the dirt of an average person.

Life is different now. Whether it’s online dating, job hunting or moving into new social circles, running a quick Google search on a new name is standard now.

With every new search, the press coverage of arrests and local outcries to the tune of “paedophile living among us” rises to the top. Before they ever get the chance to make a first impression, Google offers a person’s worst moment as their calling card. It displays the picture that was likely taken before a judge ever heard the charge and considered the circumstances and defence of the accused. None of these details will be printed, of course. The story is the uncovering of a monster, another wolf in sheep’s clothing finally caught.

There is no room for explanations or humanity. The headline says it all – often including the street address of the accused.

Should the case be dismissed, the charges dropped, there won’t be a follow-up article to explain the situation. Or if there is, it won’t have nearly the fanfare that the original scandalous headline displayed. The public’s fear of sex offenders guarantees clicks – and with that, advertisement money.

Basic DBS checks don’t display spent convictions, so after a set time has passed, a person in the UK has the right to a second chance, untainted by past mistakes. Google and the press do not grant individuals the same courtesy. There is no limit to how long articles about an allegation or a conviction can be displayed for everyone to see. And with that, the shame, the stigma, and the ostracization being brought back to the fore. Again and again and again.

This re-traumatisation extends past the offender to family members and, most tragically, to children. There is a reason why suicide rates of offenders have increases six-fold post release between 2011 and 2018. A past mistake can feel like a death penalty when it will be held against you by everyone you meet - in perpetuity.

And, God forbid, an offender should contravene a notification requirement and have to go to court! It is unclear whether journalists really lack the understanding of the nuances or whether nothing matters but the opportunity to write “Paedophile charged with second disgusting offence!!” Moral outrage trumps all reason. From articles about a teenager charged with failing to register his gaming console (the SHPO’s wording is rather unclear) or an octogenarian who spent seven, not six, days with his sister over Christmas because of train disruptions and didn’t think to check in with police – both headlines decry the reoffending of dangerous individuals.

There is a question of the newsworthiness of some of these articles. The reality is, however, that we live in a world where anyone can write anything they want on the internet. If they a little about SEO, their article will likely rise to the top of the search results and poison any hope of a second chance or rehabilitation.

Is it hopeless?

No, it isn’t. While we can’t stop people and newspapers from covering court cases, we can proactively manage our digital footprint and what people find when they look us up online.

There are two main mechanisms for managing your perception online: removal and dilution.

Both hinge on awareness and continued monitoring of what is written about us or our loved one. Proactive online reputation management can be painful and frustrating, but it is worth it in the end. Giving ourselves the freedom to live our lives without the worst thing about us being public knowledge is a huge relief.

If you were to google my rare and unusual last name, with enough digging, you might find that I share my name with three sex offenders. None of them is a relation or known to me at all – but you won’t find a single bad thing about my husband. I am a qualified PR professional, and I have made it my job to protect his career, our ability to introduce ourselves to strangers without fear and our family as a whole.

In the past five years, my team and I have helped dozens of people in the same boat. Each case is unique and requires a different approach, but the mechanisms we use can be employed by anyone.

How to scrub your name

These are the steps that we would take as professionals, and you can do all these things yourself too.

First, we assess the situation: We unearth everything a motivated party might find on the internet.

Second, we contact the biggest search engines to suppress unfavourable content. This isn’t always successful, depending on the source, and can take some time.

Third, we contact the publishers of the unwanted content. For newspapers, one has to approach their legal team and provide a convincing argument showing why privacy laws should overrule the public interest in this particular case. For all other websites, one has to find, and then open negotiations with, the webmaster or site administrator.

We expect to see a real difference in which search results are displayed for our client’s names on the first page of Google within six to eight weeks. Concurrently, we work with our clients to create new content.

Fourth, we audit social media platforms. We urge our clients to be highly judicious regarding social profiles. The removal of content from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is fraught with difficulty and requires persistence and sometimes detailed knowledge of the American legal system, which often governs these platforms. Social media management includes an aspect of user management, not just content management – meaning, we sometimes might suggest closing or changing accounts.

Fifth, search engines do not work well with a vacuum. Once the high-ranking negative content has been removed, more obscure search results for a name will be brought up such as Reddit mentions, spam sites, unrelated old blog posts or other content. None of this may be outright damaging, but may still be unwanted, and some of this will then rise to the top. This is where we proactively produce material which the algorithms will pick up as highly relevant to the search term (in other words, the name) and create the kind of first impression that enables a client to lead the life they want.

On average, we create three or four dedicated websites and publish content across many platforms showing positive aspects of a client’s professional and private life. In some cases, the strategy may include creating content for namesakes living in foreign countries to serve as filler material. This is particularly helpful when a client wants to start a new life or has yet to build up a professional profile.

Our blog resource section offers over a hundred articles on how to remove negative content step-by-step and navigate life after a conviction. There are many things in this dark time that we have no control over – but first impressions online of our loved ones shouldn’t be one of those.

While the title of this blog post “The Google Effect” refers to individuals being reduced to the worst moment of their lives in perpetuity, because their name is linked to an allegation of criminal or unethical behaviour, “the Google effect” is actually a well-studied modern phenomenon that is also called “digital amnesia” – referring to the fact that our brains don’t hold on to information that is at our disposal through a Google search.

I love the term “digital amnesia” but would also like to mis-purpose it by using it as a synonym for “digital scrubbing and negative content removal of unfavourable information relating to someone’s name”. If you would like to give the world digital amnesia and need help removing press articles or other online content about whatever is holding you back from living your life in peace, please email me, Talia, at HelpMe@FixMy.Digital. If you use the subject line “SUSAN”, I’ll apply a special discount to your account.