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I need to remove defaming content about me from an online archive.

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Wry

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California

Until recently, I ran a personal blog on the website Tumblr, but now I've had to password protect and abandon that blog after I've been driven off the site by harassment.

Before I password protected the blog, somebody I do not know archived 26 pages from it on a website called XXXX, and they are now spreading links to those archived pages to other users on Tumblr as a way of spreading hate and harassment aimed specifically at me, even though I've already left the website and want nothing to do with it or these people anymore.

This is a VERY personal issue that has gotten way out of hand, and I am now experiencing extreme psychological distress over the fact that likely hundreds of people are viewing these archived pages and using it all to publicly shame me.

I contacted the email provided on XXXXXX about 2 hours ago, but there's no way for me to know when or even if I'll get an appropriate response. I can't even find any kind of terms of service denouncing the use of this particular archive for the purpose of harassing people and spreading their private information, so I don't know how they handle such things. I've googled just about everything I can think of to try and find a better way to contact the website, but there's only extremely scarce information, it appears very sketchy, and I'm simply afraid that I'll never get the right help.

I no longer care about how people are publicly shaming me on Tumblr (although, if Tumblr itself could do something about the multiple posts with hundreds of notes going around with screenshots of "bad" things I've said, that would be great too). At this point, my primary concern is removing the archived content that's being used to spread hatred and defamation aimed towards me.

While the primary issue is just getting these pages taken down from XXXX, what's making this more complicated is the nature of the original issue. The reason hundreds of people are now harassing and spreading (often times completely false) information about me is because I'm a 21-year-old and I developed a romantic interest for a person who initially claimed to be 18, but later informed me that they're actually still 17. Incredibly long story short, this has snowballed into a situation where most people in the community I was originally a part of on Tumblr are now referring to me as a "pedophile" and a "rapist", despite my desperate insistence that I'm only interested in carefully exploring the romantic aspects of this relationship and have no interest in even thinking about sexual contact with this person until they're at least 18.

Now, the fact that I'm having such an impossible time finding a comfortable way to try and get help has led me to start thinking that maybe I should just contact the police or FBI or something. I don't want to press charges for the harassment or anything like that. Again, literally the ONLY thing I'm concerned with right now is removing my content that somebody else put in an online archive.

So, here's my question:

How do I go about getting appropriate help for this situation without potentially sparking the authorities' interest in the fact that I'm romantically involved with a legal minor? Would they even care, since I've only just recently met this person, we've NEVER had sexual contact of any kind, and we've NEVER discussed sexual contact of any kind?

This is just causing me a massive amount of distress, and it's hugely affecting my emotional state and ability to function. Any help at all would be very much appreciated. Thank you for your time.
 
Last edited by a moderator:


Just Blue

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California

Until recently, I ran a personal blog on the website Tumblr, but now I've had to password protect and abandon that blog after I've been driven off the site by harassment.

Before I password protected the blog, somebody I do not know archived 26 pages from it on a website called XXXX, and they are now spreading links to those archived pages to other users on Tumblr as a way of spreading hate and harassment aimed specifically at me, even though I've already left the website and want nothing to do with it or these people anymore.

This is a VERY personal issue that has gotten way out of hand, and I am now experiencing extreme psychological distress over the fact that likely hundreds of people are viewing these archived pages and using it all to publicly shame me.

I contacted the email provided on XXXXXX about 2 hours ago, but there's no way for me to know when or even if I'll get an appropriate response. I can't even find any kind of terms of service denouncing the use of this particular archive for the purpose of harassing people and spreading their private information, so I don't know how they handle such things. I've googled just about everything I can think of to try and find a better way to contact the website, but there's only extremely scarce information, it appears very sketchy, and I'm simply afraid that I'll never get the right help.

I no longer care about how people are publicly shaming me on Tumblr (although, if Tumblr itself could do something about the multiple posts with hundreds of notes going around with screenshots of "bad" things I've said, that would be great too). At this point, my primary concern is removing the archived content that's being used to spread hatred and defamation aimed towards me.

While the primary issue is just getting these pages taken down from XXXX, what's making this more complicated is the nature of the original issue. The reason hundreds of people are now harassing and spreading (often times completely false) information about me is because I'm a 21-year-old and I developed a romantic interest for a person who initially claimed to be 18, but later informed me that they're actually still 17. Incredibly long story short, this has snowballed into a situation where most people in the community I was originally a part of on Tumblr are now referring to me as a "pedophile" and a "rapist", despite my desperate insistence that I'm only interested in carefully exploring the romantic aspects of this relationship and have no interest in even thinking about sexual contact with this person until they're at least 18.

Now, the fact that I'm having such an impossible time finding a comfortable way to try and get help has led me to start thinking that maybe I should just contact the police or FBI or something. I don't want to press charges for the harassment or anything like that. Again, literally the ONLY thing I'm concerned with right now is removing my content that somebody else put in an online archive.

So, here's my question:

How do I go about getting appropriate help for this situation without potentially sparking the authorities' interest in the fact that I'm romantically involved with a legal minor? Would they even care, since I've only just recently met this person, we've NEVER had sexual contact of any kind, and we've NEVER discussed sexual contact of any kind?

This is just causing me a massive amount of distress, and it's hugely affecting my emotional state and ability to function. Any help at all would be very much appreciated. Thank you for your time.
Why don't you give it a day or two for the site to get back to you. And don't post online about your love life. Always a very bad idea.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

quincy

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California

Until recently, I ran a personal blog on the website Tumblr, but now I've had to password protect and abandon that blog after I've been driven off the site by harassment.

Before I password protected the blog, somebody I do not know archived 26 pages from it on a website called XXXX, and they are now spreading links to those archived pages to other users on Tumblr as a way of spreading hate and harassment aimed specifically at me, even though I've already left the website and want nothing to do with it or these people anymore.

This is a VERY personal issue that has gotten way out of hand, and I am now experiencing extreme psychological distress over the fact that likely hundreds of people are viewing these archived pages and using it all to publicly shame me.

I contacted the email provided on XXXXXX about 2 hours ago, but there's no way for me to know when or even if I'll get an appropriate response. I can't even find any kind of terms of service denouncing the use of this particular archive for the purpose of harassing people and spreading their private information, so I don't know how they handle such things. I've googled just about everything I can think of to try and find a better way to contact the website, but there's only extremely scarce information, it appears very sketchy, and I'm simply afraid that I'll never get the right help.

I no longer care about how people are publicly shaming me on Tumblr (although, if Tumblr itself could do something about the multiple posts with hundreds of notes going around with screenshots of "bad" things I've said, that would be great too). At this point, my primary concern is removing the archived content that's being used to spread hatred and defamation aimed towards me.

While the primary issue is just getting these pages taken down from XXXX, what's making this more complicated is the nature of the original issue. The reason hundreds of people are now harassing and spreading (often times completely false) information about me is because I'm a 21-year-old and I developed a romantic interest for a person who initially claimed to be 18, but later informed me that they're actually still 17. Incredibly long story short, this has snowballed into a situation where most people in the community I was originally a part of on Tumblr are now referring to me as a "pedophile" and a "rapist", despite my desperate insistence that I'm only interested in carefully exploring the romantic aspects of this relationship and have no interest in even thinking about sexual contact with this person until they're at least 18.

Now, the fact that I'm having such an impossible time finding a comfortable way to try and get help has led me to start thinking that maybe I should just contact the police or FBI or something. I don't want to press charges for the harassment or anything like that. Again, literally the ONLY thing I'm concerned with right now is removing my content that somebody else put in an online archive.

So, here's my question:

How do I go about getting appropriate help for this situation without potentially sparking the authorities' interest in the fact that I'm romantically involved with a legal minor? Would they even care, since I've only just recently met this person, we've NEVER had sexual contact of any kind, and we've NEVER discussed sexual contact of any kind?

This is just causing me a massive amount of distress, and it's hugely affecting my emotional state and ability to function. Any help at all would be very much appreciated. Thank you for your time.
You potentially can use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) notice and takedown procedure to have the ISP(s) remove all copyright-infringed material from the site or sites that have published your copyright-protected material without your authorization. You will need to make sure first that your exclusive rights when you created your blog were not signed away through a licensing agreement with the blog site host.

Here is a link to the Copyright Office where you can find more information: http://www.copyright.gov

If you wrote what was published on your blog - although reprinting it might violate your copyrights - the writings themselves would not defame you, even if reading them now might embarrass you or cause legal issues for you based on the content. Unless the words were altered or comments posted by others about what you wrote were defamatory and resulted in injury to your reputation, there is no defamation in your own words.

You could have an attorney in your area take a personal look at the facts.

Good luck.
 
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Just Blue

Senior Member
You potentially can use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) notice and takedown procedure to have the ISP(s) remove all copyright-infringed material from the site or sites that have published your copyright-protected material without your authorization. You will need to make sure first that your exclusive rights when you created your blog were not signed away through a licensing agreement with the blog site host.

Here is a link to the Copyright Office where you can find more information: http://www.copyright.gov

If you wrote what was published on your blog, although reprinting it might violate your rights, the writings themselves would not defame you - even if reading them now might embarrass you or cause legal issues for you based on the content - unless the words were altered or comments posted by others about what you wrote were defamatory and resulted in injury to your reputation.

You could have an attorney in your area take a personal look at the facts.

Good luck.
OP contacted the site just 2 hours ago. If OP gave it a bit of time they may remove it ....
 

quincy

Senior Member
OP contacted the site just 2 hours ago. If OP gave it a bit of time they may remove it ....
True. Wry should give it some time.

While giving it time, he should review the terms he agreed to when starting his blog. Most sites have terms that grant them nonexclusive rights, allowing the sites to do what they want to do with the material published on their sites.

The sites in that case would not have to remove content without a court order.

Here is a link to Tumblr's terms of service, which do include a nonexclusive license to content provided by users: https://www.tumblr.com/policy/en/terms-of-service
 
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Wry

Junior Member
Why don't you give it a day or two for the site to get back to you. And don't post online about your love life. Always a very bad idea.
I'm definitely planning on waiting and seeing if my email did anything at all, but like I said, XXX seems sketchy. Sketchy in the sense that, from what I've been able to find, only one person is responsible for the site and he runs his own Tumblr blog where he answers questions related to the archive, but it's been over 2 months since the last time he answered a question, and I'm just getting the feeling that he scarcely even bothers managing the archive or dealing with it at all anymore.

For that reason, I'd like to get started now on a backup plan.

Not to mention, as I've already said, this is incredibly distressing, so I would like to do something about it as soon as possible, rather than just sitting and waiting in absolute dread for 48 straight hours. I get that it's objectively not the most urgent matter, but it's very important to me to figure this out.

You potentially can use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) notice and takedown procedure to have the ISP(s) remove all copyright-infringed material from the site or sites that have published your copyright-protected material without your authorization. You will need to make sure first that your exclusive rights when you created your blog were not signed away through a licensing agreement with the blog site host.

Here is a link to the Copyright Office where you can find more information: http://www.copyright.gov

If you wrote what was published on your blog, although reprinting it might violate your rights, the writings themselves would not defame you - even if reading them now might embarrass you or cause legal issues for you based on the content - unless the words were altered or comments posted by others about what you wrote were defamatory and resulted in injury to your reputation.

You could have an attorney in your area take a personal look at the facts.

Good luck.
I'll certainly look into that, thank you.

Also, yeah, I wasn't entirely certain if this alone would be considered defamation or not. Although, for the record, I have personally witnessed people actually spreading libel about me. One person, for instance, suggested that I have predatorily pursued multiple younger teenagers, claiming that I "go after 15-16 year olds", which isn't even remotely true. I have no idea what would cause these people to say things like that other than the want to spread deliberately false information about me.
 
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PayrollHRGuy

Senior Member
You may have some problems.

First the owner of the domain is listed as:
person: xxxxx
address: xxxxxx
address: xxxxxx
e-mail: xxxxxxx
nic-hdl: xxxxx
created: May 16 2012
source: ISNIC


And a Google of the site seems to be mostly fraud warnings.
 
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quincy

Senior Member
You may have some problem ...


... And a Google of the site seems to be mostly fraud warnings.
I found the same information about the site.


edit to add: It is best not to publish someone's name and information and then state or imply that person is a fraud. Especially in the defamation section of the forum. ;)
 
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PayrollHRGuy

Senior Member
I found the same information about the site. It is definitely questionable.


edit to add: It is best not to publish someone's name and information and then state or imply that person is a fraud. Especially in the defamation section of the forum. ;)
My bad. I meant to redact the name and address enough to not be identifiable and got in a hurry other than the city and country.

To the OP a whois search of the website address will get you the information that has been removed.
 

quincy

Senior Member
My bad. I meant to redact the name and address enough to not be identifiable and got in a hurry other than the city and country.

To the OP a whois search of the website address will get you the information that has been removed.
It is especially difficult - and generally prohibitively expensive - to try to hold a foreign-based website accountable for their publication contents. The laws that apply will be those of the country where the company is located.
 
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Shadowbunny

Queen of the Not-Rights
I'm definitely planning on waiting and seeing if my email did anything at all, but like I said, XXX seems sketchy. Sketchy in the sense that, from what I've been able to find, only one person is responsible for the site and he runs his own Tumblr blog where he answers questions related to the archive, but it's been over 2 months since the last time he answered a question, and I'm just getting the feeling that he scarcely even bothers managing the archive or dealing with it at all anymore.

For that reason, I'd like to get started now on a backup plan.

Not to mention, as I've already said, this is incredibly distressing, so I would like to do something about it as soon as possible, rather than just sitting and waiting in absolute dread for 48 straight hours. I get that it's objectively not the most urgent matter, but it's very important to me to figure this out.



I'll certainly look into that, thank you.

Also, yeah, I wasn't entirely certain if this alone would be considered defamation or not. Although, for the record, I have personally witnessed people actually spreading libel about me. One person, for instance, suggested that I have predatorily pursued multiple younger teenagers, claiming that I "go after 15-16 year olds", which isn't even remotely true. I have no idea what would cause these people to say things like that other than the want to spread deliberately false information about me.

Did you use your real name on your original blog?
 

quincy

Senior Member
Did you use your real name on your original blog?
Although I understand why you are asking the question, the answer might not matter. If someone is identifiable by content, even if not identified by name, they can be defamed.

There are several case examples, with many of these examples coming from defamation claims arising over book contents. Fictional characters based on real people or memoirs that try (and fail) to disguise real people (by using fake names, altering appearances) have resulted in successful lawsuits against the authors and publishers. "Running with Scissors" and "The Red Hat Club" are two that come to mind.

These defamation cases have the same type of challenges that defamation cases involving anonymous online posters have. A real person must be defamed and suffer reputational injury. An identified blogger and an identifiable blogger can both be defamed. Obviously, though, it makes it easier to sue for defamation when the one defamed is identified by name. :)
 
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PayrollHRGuy

Senior Member
You may have some problems.

First the owner of the domain is listed as:
person: xxxxx
address: xxxxxx
address: xxxxxx
e-mail: xxxxxxx
nic-hdl: xxxxx
created: May 16 2012
source: ISNIC


And a Google of the site seems to be mostly fraud warnings.

I believe this was over redacted. The fact that the domain holder is in Prague Czech Republic is pretty important to the issue.
 

quincy

Senior Member
I believe this was over redacted. The fact that the domain holder is in Prague Czech Republic is pretty important to the issue.
The moderator felt the redaction necessary.

And Wry apparently has already contacted the archive site by the email given in the registry.

The only "pretty important" thing about Prague is that the location makes removal of the archived pages less likely than it already was.

The fact is that, once something is published on the internet, it can be captured, saved or shared by others. Nothing really prevents that. If you publish online something embarrassing about yourself, you may have to wait for the passage of time. People are probably not going to be interested in Wry's story for long.
 

Shadowbunny

Queen of the Not-Rights
Although I understand why you are asking the question, the answer might not matter. If someone is identifiable by content, even if not identified by name, they can be defamed.

There are several case examples, with many of these examples coming from defamation claims arising over book contents. Fictional characters based on real people or memoirs that try (and fail) to disguise real people (by using fake names, altering appearances) have resulted in successful lawsuits against the authors and publishers. "Running with Scissors" and "The Red Hat Club" are two that come to mind.

These defamation cases have the same type of challenges that defamation cases involving anonymous online posters have. A real person must be defamed and suffer reputational injury. An identified blogger and an identifiable blogger can both be defamed. Obviously, though, it makes it easier to sue for defamation when the one defamed is identified by name. :)
Thanks for the explanation, quincy. Although I would imagine that the story of John Smith, the 21 year-old who dated a 17 y.o., wouldn't hold much interest for anyone. In fact, it would seem to be "much ado about nothing." I'm surprised that anyone finds this worthy of discussion, let alone defamation.
 

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