HALIFAX – Your online pictures you thought only ‘friends’ could see, with your Facebook privacy settings at the max, could also be used to defame you on a vitriol-laden website gaining popularity in Nova Scotia.
TheDirty.com is hardly a new website, but in recent weeks the site has seen an increase in posts from Halifax and Truro.
The Arizona-based website hosts page after page of damaging? posts and photos uploaded by anonymous users.
The site’s owner and founder, Nik Richie, says he’s merely responding the demand of a fan base.
So what does that fan base want?
In a word: scandal.
TheDirty.com is rife with allegations of promiscuity,cheating, pedophilia and even prostitution.
And that’s just the posts from two N.S. cities. The site collects posts from dozens of major cities around Canada, the U.S. and Australia.
Each and every libelous post is accompanied by photos, most likely taken from the subject’s social media account.
Case in point, a post about a young Truro woman:
“She’ll do anything for a “fix” as a teenager Marissa would huff Mr.clean and any ohter (sic) house hold cleans or cemicals (sic) that would get her high she also would steal her parents pills to get high, she had a rouf(sic) childhood thou sence(sic) both of her parents are needle junkies and both have HEP C.”
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Speaking on Anderson Cooper’s daytime talk show in January, Richie says he reviews all of the posts submitted to TheDirty.com and he has some lines he won’t cross, such as posting nude pictures.
“I really try to make an effort and I do remove stuff. I’m not like other sites that let total garbage go up,” Richie says.
And while he will remove contentious posts, it could come at a cost.
Richie says he’ll consider requests to take a post down, but he charges $15 for an “expedited review process,” bumping you up to the top of his list.
But, that’s just to mull it over.
He says the money is for his “time and effort” and he claims he refunds the money if the post stays up.
Halifax lawyer David Fraser says Canadians may be able to take action even though privacy and defamation laws are different in the U.S.
He says our internet laws respect the private information you put up online and the laws cover your private information other people put online.
“There’s a law in the United States that allows the provider of these host sites immunity from any sort of liability from what their users put online,” said Fraser. “We don’t have (that law) in Canada.”
Watch this extended interview with privacy lawyer David Fraser:
Fraser says it makes it difficult to challenge American companies, but not impossible.
Lawyers have to prove a Canadian connection to an allegation of libel.
“In an instance where the person being defamed is in Canada and the person likely defaming is in Canada , that’s enough for Canadian laws to apply.”
As for whether your personal photos remain private if you post them online for all to see, Fraser says copyright laws don’t necessarily apply.
But, he says, in Canada you can sue someone for an unreasonable invasion of privacy and posting private photos could fall into this category.
“Particularly if it’s intentional and in many cases it really looks like it was done intentionally and maliciously,” Fraser explained.
He says the first thing someone who has been slandered online should do is contact a lawyer who will first contact the website owner and request the item be removed.
In many cases , he says, websites will take down the content when they realize U.S. immunity laws will not apply to them.
Failing that the lawyer can seek a court order against the website and to remove the post and to access the information about the individual that uploaded the photos.
After that you can proceed with a defamation suit.
“It’s not a very simple procedure and it can sometimes get very expensive, but when you’re dealing with your reputation, in many cases, it’s worth it.”
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