I was falsely arrested under the belief of arson. It happened when I was in my early 20s. The charges were dismissed and my expensive lawyer said it was the best deal to end it all. There wasn't even a fire and a cop that made the arrest had no reason to assume I was trying to start a fire. In any case, I still have to wait a few years to even expunge it.
Well, when going through university I was bullied & ostracized for a period of time and eventually found out someone had googled my name. They could see the arrest on some website and just the type of charge it was.
Some context: I'm not from an upperclass family and me just paying for the lawyer to get the case dismissed really hurt financially. As well with the strain on my parents.
At the time of the event, lawyers told me it's very hard to make anything worth the effort & cost and unless clear video evidence exists of what happened. It would have been my testimony against the police officer. Police have good lawyers when they're being sued as well.
I was unsure about suing a website for libel. I did research the laws around it and services do exist to attempt at removing similar material online of what happened against me. I thought after finding out why I was bullied that it wasn't guaranteed and changing my name would likely be sufficient. At this point in my life I'm still not financially well off to care enough anymore. I work in academia and I moved outside of the USA after graduating.
I did learn a lot from what happened. It can really hurt to not be financially well off, the system really harms people even if they're innocent and not everyone has a happy story of lawyers lining up to take on injustice.