Since social media posts can be easily shared, negative or false comments about a business can go viral in no time.

In the age of social media, a positive review or comment about a company can be very beneficial, helping a brand gain notoriety and increase business. But a company's good reputation can often be quickly undone by negative reviews, especially when the review is defamatory.

Since social media posts can be easily shared and reposted, negative comments about a business can go viral in no time and reach an enormous number of people, a number that far exceeds the original poster's immediate circle of contacts.

Mark Rosenberg, co-chair of law firm Tarter Krinsky & Drogin's Reputation Management practice, sat down with Inside Counsel to discuss the parameters of when negative reviews might be unlawful, and various methods for dealing with negative reviews and those that are blatantly untrue or use false statements. He has brought action against reviewers on behalf of clients who claimed that reviews contained false statements and exceeded the bounds of protected speech. Over the years, Rosenberg has also helped clients work through several solutions to negative reviews, and not only through the court system.

“Negative reviews on an Internet review site such as Yelp, Trip Advisor or Healthgrades can quickly damage your or your business' reputation,” he said. “Even more problematic is when the review is defamatory, that is when the review is based on false statements of fact.”

In fact, while the reviewer's opinions are protected speech under the First Amendment, false statements of fact are not protected. Under the law, there is a difference between when a reviewer claims that a restaurant's soup tastes like gasoline and when the reviewer falsely claims that there was a mouse swimming in his soup – the former is a protected opinion and the latter is defamatory.

“While negative and even false reviews can be frustrating, it is not always necessary to respond to each one,” explained Rosenberg. “Before moving forward, an analysis should be conducted as to the importance and nature of the review, its potential to cause damage and whether a particular response could make things worse.”

In general, there are three key avenues that can be taken to have a negative review taken down – convince the reviewer to remove the offending review, ask the review site to remove the review and obtain a court order or judgment requiring the reviewer to take down the review. According to Rosenberg, these include: Respond online to the review; send a cease and desist letter; buy-off the reviewer; contact the Website and; obtain a court order or judgment.

So, when exactly is the social media review considered defamatory? In the context of a business, a review is defamatory when it makes false statements about the business or the products or services it offers. Rosenberg has worked with clients in getting negative reviews removed and guided them in situations where removal is not an option. His efforts have included contacting the review site and explaining why the review is false and thus violates the site's policies, filing lawsuits against the person posting the review, sending demand letters to the reviewers, assisting clients in preparing a response to the review and working with reputation management firms to make the review less prominent on search results pages.

“A court order is often the option of last resort because first and foremost, it is expensive,” he said. “To obtain a court order, a lawsuit needs to be filed and litigation is not cheap. Also, in many situations, obtaining an order requiring the site to remove the review can be difficult to obtain. That is because sites hosting third party reviews are largely protected by a federal law known as the Communications Decency Act.”

So, instead of filing a lawsuit against the site, the lawsuit needs to be filed against the person who posted the review, with the order compelling that person to remove the review. This gets tricky when the review was posted anonymously or under a false name, according to Rosenberg.

There are several methods for dealing with negative reviews and those that are blatantly untrue. He advises responding the review, contacting the review site, sending a letter to the reviewer demanding that the review be removed and filing a lawsuit.