“The only items that concern me is when his image is being used in a negative, ugly way — denying the tragedy, calling him a crisis actor and everything else that the typical global village idiot on the net does,” Mr. Pozner said.

In the absence of uniform online policies about hoaxes, Mr. Pozner’s most effective tool has been filing copyright claims on images of Noah. He has filed such claims with Automattic about photos of Noah appearing on posts that labeled him a “crisis actor” who had been spotted in Pakistan after Sandy Hook and others that claimed he was a “fiction” and that photos of him were created using images of his older half brother.

Automattic has repeatedly responded to Mr. Pozner with form letters saying “because we believe this to be fair use of the material, we will not be removing it at this time.” The letters explain that fair use could include “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.” They also warn that the company could collect damages from people who “knowingly materially misrepresent” copyrights.

“The responses from their support people are very automated, very generic, very cold and there’s just no getting through to them,” Mr. Pozner said.

“They have taken this incorrect interpretation of freedom of speech to an extreme,” he added. “The only thing WordPress has taken out — and where I’ve been successful — is if someone posts personal information like my driver’s license or address.”

Automattic said that the responses Mr. Pozner received were “a predefined statement” that is used in copyright situations. “We regret that it was used in this situation,” the company said. “We offer our apologies to the family for the response we gave to them.”