title: Violated Online: How Online Slander Can Destroy Your Life & What You Must Do to Protect Yourself
author:  Steven Wyer 
description: Steven Wyer is Managing Director for Reputation Advocate, helping those who have been slandered online. Earlier in his career, he founded and managed a multi-million dollar direct marketing company, and he has consulted with Fortune 500 companies in the financial industry. The online slander he encountered changed his life and his resolve to help others who have been violated online.
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  CODA I: FIRST PERSON
  
  Hello, Internet.
  
  There isn’t any good way to start this, so let me just jump right in.
  
  So, I am a scriptwriter for a television show on a major network who just
  found out that the people he’s been making up in his head (and killing off at
  the rate of about one an episode) are actually real. Now I have writer’s
  block, I don’t know how to solve it, and if I don’t figure it out soon, I’m
  going to get fired. Help me.
  
  And now I just spent 20 minutes looking at that last paragraph and feeling
  like an asshole. Let me break it down further to explain it to you a little
  better.
  
  “Hello, Internet”: You know that New Yorker cartoon that has a dog talking to
  another dog by a computer and saying, “On the Internet, no one knows you’re a
  dog”? Yeah, well, this is that.
  
  No, I’m not a dog. But yes, I need some anonymity here. Because holy shit,
  look what I just wrote up there. That’s not something you can just say out
  loud to people. But on 