Recently a friend and I started a sports site with a twitter account and got into interviewing professional athletes. About 3 weeks ago my friend found rumors on the web about a possible trade and posted it on the twitter account. He made sure it was "rumor" and what not. This was then on a popular sports site and people started getting made and saying we are fakes for reporting fake/misleading information. - Didn't have that big of a problem. IMPORTANT PART BELOW! Just a few days ago someone posted on the same site saying things we had NEVER said. Basically he said according to our twitter and such with quotes and all a player was being traded and all this fake information.... saying we said it, we never did. People started sending us messages saying we are fakes and all this, when we post anything like an interview, somehow it is "fake". It was never this bad until this person posted these things about us and quoting things we had NEVER said. Later he finally admitted that we never said these things and was sorry... the problem is it HAS hurt our business and whatever we do is followed by "fake". Is what this person did illegal? Is there anything I can do against this? Thanks
Don't waste your time on this it will get you nowhere. Just concentrate on growing your business. That is both legal and business advice.
I don't know where you are, but in the U.S. it would certainly be a lawsuit for damages (if there was any significant money involved). But I can't answer that question for you. You have to look at the laws of where you are and then determine of you have the money to pursue legal action in the first place. In the U.S. you can sue anyone you want to, but you have to prove your case.