Online Reviews and Defamation: Opinion, Fact, Evidence, and Platform Issues

"The food was disgusting" and "they served me expired meat" look similar in a one-star review, but the law treats them very differently. The first is opinion: distaste cannot be proven false. The second asserts a fact about what happened, and facts can be checked. That single test — is the statement capable of being proven true or false — decides most disputes about online reviews before anyone reaches damages. Opinion is protected however brutal it is. A false statement of fact that harms a reputation is the narrow category that can support a claim.

Sorting the sentences

Read a disputed review one sentence at a time. Reviews mix registers freely, and a single provably false assertion buried in three paragraphs of subjective complaint is what a claim would rest on.

Two refinements matter. Calling something "my opinion" does not convert a factual claim into opinion — a statement that implies undisclosed facts can still be actionable. And truth is a defense: an accurate account of something that genuinely happened does not become defamation because it costs the business money.

Which layer of law is doing the work

Defamation is a state-law tort. The elements, the categories of damages, whether a retraction demand is required before filing, and the filing deadline all vary from state to state. There is no single national standard, and a rule quoted from one state's case law frequently does not travel.

Federal law sits on top of it in two ways. Constitutional protection for speech requires public figures, and plaintiffs suing over matters of public concern, to prove actual malice — knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth — which is a far harder showing than ordinary negligence. And federal statutes govern platforms and commercial review practices, discussed below.

Timing is state law too, and it is unforgiving. Defamation periods are among the shortest in civil practice in many states, and in some the clock runs from first publication rather than from the day the business noticed the post. Our explainer on how filing deadlines can end a civil claim covers how accrual is calculated.

Watch out: Many states have anti-SLAPP statutes that let a defendant sued over speech seek early dismissal and, in a number of states, recover attorney fees. Coverage varies sharply, and there is no general federal anti-SLAPP statute. A weak suit against a reviewer can end with the business paying the reviewer's costs — and with far more people reading the review than ever would have otherwise.

Why the platform is almost never the defendant

Businesses routinely direct their anger at the review site. Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act generally shields an online service from liability for content its users wrote, so demanding that a platform pay damages for a customer's review usually fails at the threshold.

Platforms can still remove content voluntarily under their own policies, and most publish a process for reporting reviews that violate those policies — fabricated visits, conflicts of interest, harassment, off-topic posts. That is a policy remedy, not a legal one, and the platform decides. Reporting through the published channel with specifics is more effective than a legal-sounding letter.

Note: A review is also authored text, and its writer holds the copyright in it. Republishing a customer's words in advertising raises separate permission and endorsement questions, which is why the U.S. Copyright Office material on ownership is worth knowing before a marketing team lifts a five-star quote into a campaign.

The rules that point the other way

Two federal regimes constrain businesses rather than reviewers, and both are enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.

The Consumer Review Fairness Act voids contract terms that penalise or bar honest consumer reviews. Non-disparagement clauses in form contracts — the kind presented on a take-it-or-leave-it basis — are unenforceable, and threatening a customer with one is itself a problem. The FTC's business guidance explains what the statute reaches.

The FTC also maintains a rule on fake and deceptive reviews and testimonials, which as of mid-2026 is the current framework on the commercial side. It targets buying or selling fake reviews, insider reviews written by employees or relatives without disclosure, deceptive suppression of negative reviews, and misuse of review-gating practices. The agency's advertising and marketing guidance is where those expectations are set out, and the overlapping disclosure duties for paid endorsements are covered in our piece on endorsement disclosures under FTC advertising rules.

Requesting reviews is fine; screening which customers get asked based on how happy they are is where businesses get into trouble. If those requests go out by email, the federal commercial-email regime applies as well — the findings behind it sit at 15 U.S.C. § 7701. Consumers who suspect manipulated ratings can report it through the FTC's consumer site.

What to preserve, immediately

Online content is editable and deletable. Whether you are a business considering a claim or a reviewer who has been threatened, the record has to be captured before it changes.

• Full-page screenshots showing the review, the reviewer's display name, the star rating, and the surrounding page.
• The direct URL to the review, plus the platform's internal review identifier if one is visible.
• Transaction records that confirm or contradict the factual claims — receipts, invoices, booking logs, card settlements.
• Service records: appointment times, staff schedules, delivery confirmations, call logs for the period described.
• Any correspondence with the reviewer, including refund offers and requests to take the post down.
• Evidence of harm that can be tied to the post rather than asserted — cancellations, lost bookings, traffic changes.
• For a reviewer: proof of the underlying experience, since truth is the strongest defense there is.

Capture matters as much as content. Screenshots are challenged routinely, and how a digital exhibit gets authenticated is set out in our explainer on authentication, hearsay, and exhibits in civil cases.

Common questions

Can I be sued for leaving a one-star review?

Anyone can be sued, but a review of your own genuine experience is difficult to lose on. Opinion is protected and truth is a defense, so the exposure sits with specific factual claims that are false — inventing an incident, or asserting conduct that did not happen. If a suit does arrive, ask early whether your state has an anti-SLAPP statute, because it can end a speech-based case quickly and may shift fees.

How do I get a false review removed from a platform?

Through the platform's own reporting process, not through the courts in the first instance. Identify which policy the post violates — fabricated experience, wrong business, conflict of interest, harassment — and report it with specifics and documentation. Platforms are shielded from liability for user reviews, so they remove content because their policies say so, not because they are legally required to. Escalate through published appeal channels if the first report fails.

Is it defamation if the reviewer was never actually a customer?

Not automatically. Claiming to be a customer when you were not is deceptive, and it usually violates platform policy, which makes removal the practical remedy. Defamation still requires a false statement of fact that harms reputation. That said, a fabricated account of a visit that never occurred is by definition false, so a non-customer review describing specific events is far more exposed than an honest customer's harsh opinion.

Can a business require customers to sign away the right to review?

No. The federal Consumer Review Fairness Act voids clauses in form contracts that bar or penalise honest reviews, and the FTC enforces it. That covers standardized terms presented without negotiation, which is how most service agreements, rental forms, and online terms are written. Invoking such a clause to threaten a customer is itself a compliance problem, quite apart from being unenforceable against the review that prompted it.

Handling a damaging review, in sequence

1. Preserve first. Capture the post and the surrounding page before doing anything that might prompt the author to edit or delete it.
2. Mark up the text. Separate opinion from factual assertions sentence by sentence, and note which assertions your records can disprove.
3. Respond publicly, briefly, and factually. A calm correction reaches future readers, which is the outcome most businesses actually want. Do not disclose customer details in a public reply.
4. Report policy violations to the platform. Use the published channel and attach the documentation, rather than sending a demand letter to the site.
5. Check your state's rules before considering a claim. The filing deadline, any retraction-demand requirement, and whether an anti-SLAPP statute applies are all state-specific.
6. Weigh the amplification. Litigation makes a quiet review permanently searchable, and a fee-shifting loss compounds it.
7. Fix the pattern. Where the underlying complaint is real, the durable remedy is operational, not legal.

Small-dollar disputes about a specific transaction sometimes belong in a different forum entirely; the mechanics of that route are in our guide to small claims court limits, filing, and collecting.