Cheating, STIs and 'Dirty' lies: the fight against a U.S. gossip giant
Adam Carter | CBC News | Posted: May 6, 2015 9:45 AM | Last Updated: May 6, 2015
Hamiltonians fighting losing battle against online gossip site The Dirty
The post about her on TheDirty.com says she's riddled with STIs and sleeps with married men.
Stephanie says that's a total lie, but she doesn't have the time, money or resources to fight a lengthy (and likely losing) court battle to have her post removed.
And Stephanie (whose name has been changed to protect her privacy) is just one of the hundreds of Hamiltonians who are featured on the immensely popular gossip site.
It's a kind of virtual equivalent to the men's room wall — a place where anonymous people can air their grievances about others unchecked and with little regard for truth — except there are photos and full names attached and the audience is the entire world.
Stephanie's post calls her "the biggest whore in Hamilton." Another post about a Hamilton woman says she's a "disgusting slut and deserves to get the sh-t kicked out of her."
Still others denounce terrible mothers who don't deserve to have kids.
There are some men on the site too, but they're dwarfed by posts about women.
Stories like hers aren't uncommon – but they do showcase a handicapped legal system that's ill-equipped to deal with cross-border defamation cases, and police services that one legal expert says could do much more to fight online harassment. What Stephanie and others find out is that it's easy to post anything on those sites, but extremely difficult to get content removed.
Most Americans have learned to accept the fact that people are allowed to criticize each other – that's just part of life. We accept this as part of the cost of living in a free society. - David Gingras, lawyer for TheDirty.com
Stephanie first found out she was on The Dirty from her boss, when an anonymous person sent along the link. "I was shocked that someone would do that," she told CBC Hamilton. "Part of me felt really upset – this is my reputation they're smearing."
"I took time off work because I was totally freaked out. I felt super isolated – the worst part was feeling super alone in this."
She's convinced that the person who posted about her on The Dirty is someone who also threatened her because she turned down his advances. She went to local police, but feels like she's lost in the shuffle.
"I had to chase them to get anything done and complain to a sergeant to get anywhere," she said. "I don't feel like I'm being taken seriously."
A losing, extremely expensive battle
Const. Steve Welton said Hamilton police can't speak about specific investigations, but said with regard to harassment and threats, if there's "reasonable grounds" to charge someone, they would.
"Being subject to this kind of behaviour is extremely concerning," he said. "We take it very seriously."
But when it comes to the degrading postings, it seems there is little they can do.
While police handle threats of physical violence or illicit photos traded without consent, clearing your name on a site like The Dirty is a civil matter – and winning that battle is not easy, nor a sure thing, says Toronto-based defamation lawyer Gil Zvulony.
"It's a big headache and it's going to cost you a lot of money at the end of the day," Zvulony said. "According to U.S. law, The Dirty hasn't done anything illegal."
Though the site is based in the U.S., it features a lot of Canadians. About 15 per cent of the site's web traffic is from Canada, but Canada represents about 50 per cent (or more) of the removal requests they receive, says The Dirty's lawyer, David Gingras.
"Canadians seem to have sharply different attitudes towards free speech than Americans. In America, we understand from a very young age that free speech is subject to strong legal protections, even when the words are rude, hateful, or negative," Gingras said. "Accordingly, most Americans have learned to accept the fact that people are allowed to criticize each other – that's just part of life."
"We accept this as part of the cost of living in a free society."
Just 'prove the truth' and you're in the clear
Gingras says The Dirty has a "lenient" removal policy – that if someone is victim of a false post on the site, they can have it removed by "simply proving the truth in court."
It's not that easy. First, you have to figure out who wrote the post, which means getting a court order in Arizona ordering The Dirty to release that information – and that alone costs about $5,000 to $10,000, Zvulony says.
That's not an avenue that's open to many people – Stephanie included. "I'd go to court if I could – but I'm a poor student," she said. Canadian law says the site itself could be sued for defamation, but U.S. law doesn't, which makes a Canadian defamation case against the site essentially useless.
The Dirty will, however, take down the claims posted about Stephanie saying she has an STI – if she sends along her medical records. That's just too invasive, she says.
"It's ridiculous that for these things to be refuted I have to send over my personal information," she said. Gingras sees it differently.
"While asking people to submit medical records (or other forms of evidence) may seem a little invasive, this is a very small price to pay in return for The Dirty helping that person remove false information from the site," he said.
Cross border cases a problem for both lawyers and police
It's brutally difficult for lawyers and police alike to conduct cross-jurisdictional and cross-border investigations and cases, Zvulony says – to the point that the option just isn't realistic most of the time. But he would like to see police try to build a criminal harassment case based off of online posts more often.
"Police could do more here," he said.
Police acknowledge the difficulty of building such cases.
"It's a ton of work and it takes months to accomplish," said Det. Sgt. Terry Paddon of the OPP's child sexual exploitation unit. In a lot of cases, police just tell people to contact websites like The Dirty themselves and ask them to take the post down, he says.
A question of gender and perception also makes things difficult. Stephanie says she has almost exclusively dealt with male officers, and doesn't feel like they understand her situation. "They just don't get it," she says.
Paddon says that there is "clearly" a system-wide policing issue in situations like these.
"I don't dispute that more could be done to help frontline male officers sympathize with female sexual exploitation issues."