A Search Engine Is Falsely Suggesting That I Pled Guilty To A Sex Crime.

Location: KY, United States

Tl;dr: A search engine has somehow matched a link to my mugshot with a summary that reads "The 25 year old pleaded guilty to raping a 14 year old girl he met while driving her school bus...", a crime I did not commit and have never been accused of. Are there more options for me to contact the search engine company and is there a case for libel/defamation?

__________________________________________________________________________________

While I am hesitant to presume that this meets all the prerequisites to pursue legal action, it has caused meaningful distress in my life and I believe it is worth asking about possible options.

I was recently made aware that searching my name returns a result of a local social media page that contains a mugshot of myself from a DUI I received in January of 2025.

This is public information and I was convicted, so this is not what I am claiming is defamatory, the defamatory content is in the summary of the link header while viewing the search results. It seems that the search engine's algorithm has misattributed the summary of another case, that doesn’t seam to appear anywhere on the page the link references, to my link header. Under my name and mugshot information the following text appears:

“Back in February, the 25-year-old pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl he met while driving her school bus. Man ...”

Clicking the link would simply take you to the post of my mugshot, with no clarifying information regarding what charge it was for, therefore any person or prospective employer upon searching my name, would see this summary and then my face, only finding a refutation of the information if they clicked the mugshot link again while on the website page and proceeded to read through the details of my arrest.

I contacted the social media site and the search engine multiple days ago and the website immediately deleted their link, but the search result and summary still remains, the link is simply now dead. The search engine company sent one response highlighting their inability to remove information from third-party sources, and seem to misunderstand the problem entirely.

I have been unemployed since July and have applied to over 150 positions, several involving coaching or teaching young children. It seems difficult to quantify actual damages but I believe that this has affected my job search, in addition to the stress I am experiencing which has had a negative impact on my grades.

Like I said, I understand this may not fully meet the requirements for a successful libel case, as the damages aren’t necessarily clear cut, but I figured it was worth asking because this has impacted my life negatively.

Thanks to anyone that takes the time to read and respond.

Edit: To clarify a couple points, the social media platform is not who took the post down it was the owner of the page whom I contacted about the issue.

Also, the summary being appended to the link does not appear anywhere on the same page as my website.