This is very interesting and I'm going to try to follow it...would like to know what everybody elses thoughts are on this - I can only hope and imagine that the forum owner is not at fault here, as there are surely terms upon registration that say "the opinions of the members here do not reflect those of the owners" and "we cannot be held responsible for what our members say"...whether or not that kind of stuff holds up, who knows.


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Attorney sues creator of Web site where women dish dirt on men

By JOE MANDAK
The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH - An attorney sued the creator of a Web site that lets women dish dirt on men, saying seven users lied when they posted messages saying he had a sexually transmitted disease, complained about paying child support and was unfaithful.

Todd J. Hollis, of Pittsburgh, thinks the creator of the Web site - http://www.dontdatehimgirl.com - bears responsibility because the site solicits negative comments, but does nothing to screen them for truthfulness. Hollis also is also suing the people who posted the comments - two women he knows and five anonymous users.

Tasha C. Joseph, 33, of Miami, works full-time on the site she created six months ago as "a new cost-effective weapon in the war on cheating men." Joseph and her attorney say the 1996 Communications Decency Act shields her from being sued.

"As a provider of a forum for speech, under federal law, she is not liable under civil law," said Lida Rodriguez-Tassef, Joseph's Miami-based attorney. "He obviously has a right to sue the posters and seek damages from them, but it's very inappropriate for Mr. Hollis to be suing an Internet services provider when the law is so clear on this."

Rodriguez-Tassef likens the Web site to a coffee shop where people can gossip, and said the owner of the shop could not be sued for what his customers say.

Hollis said a family member alerted him that he was on the site in May.
"She likens the information to kind of a high school forum but this is ridiculous, people are being harmed because of this site," he said.
Among the negative posts is one that said, in part, "He dated one of my friends ... that was before she found out that he had dated half of Pittsburgh. AND he is believed to have HERPES. Stay away!"

Hollis, 38, a criminal attorney for 12 years, said the site has harmed him personally and professionally.

"You remember when people once said the pen was mightier than the sword? It's now the keyboard," Hollis said. "A lawyer is a representative of the client and if people believe the lawyer engaged in behavior with nefarious connotations, would you want that person representing you in a serious matter?"

Joseph, who worked as a publicist before staring the Web site, said the idea for the site came out of a conversation with some girlfriends. She suggested that it's a good way for a woman to find out about a guy before she invests too much time in him.

Profiles of about 9,000 men from around the world appear on her site, Joseph said. She does not edit the posts nor select which ones run. If a man disagrees with what someone says about him, he can post a response on his profile, she said.

"If a lawsuit like this were allowed to prevail it would have a chilling effect on the Internet as a public forum," Joseph said. "I think people should be allowed to say firsthand what happened to them."
Hollis said a rebuttal would have been like name-calling, and questioned the philosophy behind the site.

"I realize people are out there with very bad track records, but since when did dating become a war?" Hollis said. "She has to be aware of the fact that when you release derogatory information on someone it has real consequences."

June 30, 2006 3:17 PM

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Source:

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This is bad very bad ! At the end we will have to hire a lawyer to come up with terms when people registers on our forum.

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I posted my story about this in other thread ages ago, basically to sum it up, a user wanted to sue us for posts that were made against him on many different sites, claiming he was our responsibility. That lawsuit will not be able to hurt that site, but I believe the people who posted it might get in trouble.

In my opinion that seems like a really stupid website anyways

Careful, that site owner may sue Ryan now

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I have had an attorney ask if we would remove a post, that they felt were inaccurate. I told them that this is a public forum and I cannot control what my members post. I told them I don't delete threads or posts but if they wanted they are welcome to post any information they felt was necessary to tell their facts. The attorney nor his client participated.

I was kinda hoping they would post. It would have made for a great debate.

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If what the people were posting was a lie, then it would be libel. Libel is against the law. You can't go around printing stuff that isn't the truth. That’s why tabloids get into trouble. Even though it might be an open forum, and anyone can post, if you have things that aren't true about another person, then it would be considered libel. And as the owner you would be obligated to make sure what was being posted was the truth.

Might sound crazy but that’s how I’ve interpreted it.

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Not *entirely* true...the reason that tabloids can get away with this is because nobody can prove that they published it knowing that it was false. What they do is hire freelance writers who give them articles...these writers aren't associated with the tabloid, so when the stars sue them, the tabloids' defense is that they were not aware that the stories were false...I would imagine that a similar defense would come into play here - the forum owner is not at fault because she was not aware that the information posted was false...if the prosecuter can prove that the forum owner knew it was false info, then they might get somewhere...but that's something that is very hard to prove.

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In our case it wasn't that the post was false or a lie. It was the attorneys trying to do damage control on an article that was reported by major news media. There was no way I was going to delete the debate. They had every opportunity to try and educate our members on the topic being disscussed.

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Ya if the owner has to know it was a lie, that would be pretty hard to prove. But this also is assumes the owner isn't posting anything on the forum.

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There is a very fine line, not even in the sand when it comes to things like these. Having read the website and some of the profiles, the filth people have been posting is disgusting.

The site itself is pretty much a place for women to rag on MEN they don't like. First off I'd like to ask what the hell is going on. What pushed this woman to make something like this? Who was so disloyal that she was motivated to create a whole website? The answer: NOBODY! She watched friends go through it. To me, thats a pretty poor excuse that can be concocted by anyone. Saying "it happened to a friend" could simply be a cover up because that way she doesn't have to link anyone to herself. Personally, I find the fact that someone could be pushed over the end by a semi-traumatic event happening to SOMEONE ELSE, to the point of focusing her life around bashing every man who has ever made a mistake in a relationship quite disturbing.

Another disturbing fact is that they're allowed to post peoples pictures. I'm a firm believer that if someone is going to have a picture used against them, then they had better have done something to deserve it (read: criminal offense). How would you feel if you had your face plastered on the internet because someone didn't enjoy her time with you? Freedom of the press is allowed for true facts. I don't believe that Don'tDateHimGirl is recognized as a press organization, nor do I believe that all the facts are true.

When you are an administrator of a site such as that, and invest time in it (enough to make it your full time job it seems) I think it would be important to at least set some guidelines. Freedom of the press only applies to facts that are proven to be true, not just rumours and political garbage. In the very least there should be a disclaimer above every post stating that these are just opinions.

I do believe that owners of communities are responsible for the content of posts to a certain extent. Slander is slander, internetwise or not. For her to not take action against it is extremely unprofessional in my opinion. While her community may be seen as a good resource by women who need to vent about the one terrible guy they dated, do people really need to put names on Google? Do they hate someone so much that they just HAVE to tell the whole internet about it? If people can't show some self-restraint then surely there is an issue. If someones stalking you, you should file for a restraining order, call the police, not post about him on the internet. Here is a quote from the website; From this article, we can tell that this woman isn't following through in her efforts to get away from him. If you were in her position, would you follow through with getting a restraining order, thus making every action he does contrary to it a violation of the law, or would you post about it on the internet so at the odd chance he finds it he flips out and does something bad for both of you?

Websites like these need to either attempt to control content, especially if there haven't been any records of anything happening, no encounters with policer, nothing to confirm the validity of claims like these. If they fail to curb comments such as these, then there is something seriously wrong.

As a webmaster, if I was approached by a lawyer to take something down, I would take it down provided it could be proven untrue or could be taken as slander. Being a revolutionary in the eyes of your members by saying "NO! WE WON'T TAKE DOWN OR EDIT POSTS EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE THE POWER!" is pretty stupid. Not only is it in poor taste if the post is truly offensive, you open up yourself for a legal battle. You as an admin have the power, and you are responsible for the forum. If you can control the content to a certain extent, then I would hope that you do it. It has been said "If good people do nothing then it is evil enough." If something isn't right, deal with it, unless you like fighting over a simple post. Its a lot easier.

To the last point, I would like to add that telling the lawyer or plaintiff to join and post is simply a good way to start a flame war.

This may not have been worded the best, and I'm not a professional writer, but when something isn't right with me, I'm not afraid to say what I think is right.

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