I was contacted recently by someone who wanted to sue the gossip app, The Tea. Basically it is an app for women to alert other women to bad dating experiences they have had with men. It is theoretically a way to protect yourself from a creepy guy. It also is ripe for someone to defame someone by committing libel which is the written version of defamation. It does not take a lot of imagination to think that someone with a broken heart might put a guy on blast in order to get back at them.
The guy who called me said he is in a strong relationship now and has been for over a year. He is upset because an old girlfriend from years ago wrote something bad about him on this app. Some people have showed it to him and he is worried it is going to ruin his reputation. Notably, his current girlfriend is aware of it and does not care about it. She knows him as a good guy.
Now I don’t know if he is a scumbag or getting defamed. Any opinions that someone wrote about him are protected speech. In other words, if an ex says, “He was really clingy,” or “He was emotionally abusive to me,” those are likely opinions. You might disagree, but if that is how they sincerely saw it, then it is not defamation. On the other hand, if they accuse you of stealing money from them or raping them and that is completely made up, you may in fact be defamed.
This caller has a unique name. When I Googled him, nothing about any allegations against him came up. That is why I suggested he do nothing. He is in a great relationship right now. While a couple of people have seen the allegation and it is embarrassing, it is not really public record. If he goes for a job and someone Google’s his name, they won’t see anything about this.
On the other hand, if he were to sue, it would potentially be the type of case that makes its way to newspapers and television cameras as well as other social media sites. Suddenly when you Googled his name, it is very likely that this allegation and the legal action he took would come up.
Now some people might think “Good for him for fighting this” but others might think bad things about it. Basically he would be drawing attention to it when his goal is to make it so nobody reads the allegations. This is known as The Streisand Effect. It’s named after famed singer/actress Barbra Streisand who sued to block photos of her Malibu mansion from being published. In doing so, more people became aware of the issue which led to wide spread circulation of the photos.
By suing to stop people from having information, she spread that information around. I believe my caller would do the same thing.
As a result, even though we would make money by referring him to an Illinois defamation attorney, the best legal advice I could give him was to do nothing. And that is the job of a good lawyer. Always do what you think is best for the client, even if it costs you.
Bonus tip. Suing for defamation in Illinois is hard. You generally have to do it within one year of when something was written or spoken. And if it is not widely spread or doesn’t cost you significant reputational harm or financial loss. In other words, most Facebook posts are not worth suing over unless you want to pay a lawyer out of pocket to bring a lawsuit.
