So, a friend of mine (really, truly, a friend and not me) is on a website called Dating Psychos where if you google her name it’s the first hit that comes up and it’s horrible. It’s utter garbage, as is the rest of the site, but like so much of the worst sort of lies, the person chiming in (apparently under various identities) has enough information that’s true to give you pause and make you doubt that the person you know is the person you really know. They’ve even put up her picture. “They” are a former best friend. There are various allegations, of drug use, serial infidelity and STDs, but it’s the true identifying info is what really bothers me. She and her husband have a daughter, and the axegrinder posts their names, provides her work phone number–you could find them in a heartbeat, and definitely, if you were a prospective employer googling, it has crap in it that would make you pass on the resume.
I thought about contacting the site owner, but, given the spew that is the rest of this site, I don’t think they care. And, since it isn’t me, I can’t threaten defamation and libel. My friend has been shown that this person is willing to bring the real psycho and doesn’t want to challenge that–she has moved since this person practically published WHORE LIVES AT XXXXX ST, she’s completely withdrawn from sharing any info in anything resembling a public manner, but it’s a small world.
Why do I care? Well, she’s my friend. If any of this crap this person put on is true, I’ve certainly seen no indication of it in over 7 years of knowing her, traveling with her, being inspired by her. We’ve moved 760 miles away, and like it or not, the web is the best way to keep in touch. Blogging is easiest, but this jerk has even chased her away from such easily accessible sites such as facebook or twitter. I miss talking to my friend without the filter of her husband’s profiles.
So, what can I do? I can’t think of anything but tossing the cyberslanderer into a Star Wars garbage compactor, but again, there’s a distance problem and a legality issue.
I appeal to the hive mind.
IANAL, but your friend needs to sue either the poster or the website. That’s about the only thing that’ll get something removed from the internet, AFAIK.
And if she’s that scared of the poster, maybe she needs to file a restraining order.
She could also change her name, move, get plastic surgery and a wig, disappear off the grid altogether and make entirely new social connections… which might actually be easier.
That sucks; I’m sorry. Good luck.
Alternately, maybe you or your friend can use some anonymizing web proxies to make several fake profiles bearing her name on datingpsychos.com and fill them out with obviously ridiculous allegations (I saw this woman sodomizing fifteen baby goats!! And she smokes weed!)
If the plan doesn’t backfire, it’ll make those profiles lose credibility and hopefully anybody Googling her will see that she’s just the victim of idiots on the web.
But then again, would she really want to work for an employer who gets their references from Dating Psychos?
She can complain to the site host to try and get it removed. She can sue to get it removed and penalize the person that posted it.
Putting peoples’ first and last names, pictures, occupations, and locations based on spurious anonymous internet reports? WTF? Are they trying to get sued?
Anyway, I checked whois and http://www.datingpsychos.com/ is a GoDaddy site. If the site admin won’t take down the person’s full name, I would contact abuse@godaddy.com and use the word “libel” frequently. You can even refer to their own terms of service which prohibit: “your use of the Services for use of the Services or Content that unnecessarily or illegally harass, activities designed to defame, embarrass, harm, abuse, threaten, slander or harass third parties”.
If that doesn’t do it, it’s time for her to take legal action. A lawyer’s cease and desist letter would probably make this go away without even needing a suit.
fluiddruid, this sounds like an excellent plan of action, I will go through those steps and let you guys know how it goes. If those don’t work on my end, perhaps she can be convinced to take the steps suggested by Reply and Harmonious Discord, although I doubt it. I think she is afraid of escalation and is resigned to letting sleeping dogs lie, which is her right as this is really her problem, but I find it frustrating. It makes me angry that they’ve essentially threatened the safety of her husband and daughter by exposing them to the scrutiny of internet freaks; if it were me, I’d have taken this person’s head off at the shoulders. Legally speaking, of course.
It matters little, because defamation is very hard to prove. First of all truth would be a very effect opt out.
Anything true, well can basically be said, in the USA there are very few limits on this. In fact they call truth an “absolute defense,” though it’s not 100% accurate it’s pretty darn close.
Second of all opinion is protected, If I say “I think Markxxx is a jerk” that’s cleary an opinion and opinion is protected by the law.
If I say “Markxxx has murdered Jane Doe,” that is a statement that is either provable or not. But if I say “Markxxx is a jerk,” that is clearly an opinion 'cause it isn’t provable or disprovable.
Can you post someone’s pic? Yes, if it is take in a public place where the person in the photo has no expectation of privacy.
The best hope you have is to get a court order against the site owner to have the comment removed, but than a judge would have to find that what is said about you isn’t true and isn’t opinon.
As for punishing who wrote it, you’d have to prove in court that the person who wrote it actually did. Not just an IP address or such 'cause anyone can get onto a computer and write anything. You have to prove that person did it.
I would go for a DMCA notice and file it with Go Daddy accusing the site of violating copyright info on you. That way the site comes down ASAP unless the owner files a counter DMCA notice. Since you issued the DMCA notice you would also get the information such as address and telephone number of the site owner, not the web host but the site owner.
Then you can call the person directly. If the phone number isn’t correct, you can file a complaint against the owner for incorrect contact info.
The bottom line is you can probably get it removed if you invest a great deal of time and a good amount of money. And even if you get it removed there’s nothing to stop someone else from putting it back up again once it gets taken down. Or heck there may even be sites that are scraping this site and using it.
The other thing for your friend to consider is that, while the posting might not bother her, it can hurt her husband and/or daughter if either of them are Googled, especially if they’re mentioned on the site by name.
What? This is so not true. Frankly, the only thing the friend needs to do is not allow herself to get chased off the internet because there is some wacked-out site that disparages her. But she is absolutely right that the less mental energy she cathects on this shitflinger, the better.
Has she been subjected to any actual harassment? Telephone calls? Visits to her house? If not, this whole thing is little scarier than being listed in the phone directory. No cause to become a recluse. (And of course, actual harassment should be reported to the authorities.)
Any employer who would allow a site like “datingpsychos.com” to enter into their hiring decisions is not an employer I’d want to work for anyhow. Nevermind the fact that I don’t think any really do (all this superstitious hokum about employers scouring Facebook and Twitter notwithstanding). And if they do, consider it a bullet dodged, I say.