Workingmother
Junior Member
What is the name of your state? Illinois
I am reposting this story here as I am not getting any response on the libel thread that I originally posted this....
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I am the co-owner of a very popular parenting website where we run articles written by well known authors and where I write and blog. A few weeks ago, I was monitoring some questionable comments on my blog, where a group of people (most likely the same person) was questioning the actions of a mother who pressed charges against an Internet predator who molested her child. Since the subject matter was so sensitive, I engaged the hostile party and warned them of crossing the line. Finally, another poster urged everyone to drop the conversation because it was getting strange.
Then, the person in question, started posting on another blog post and then another and then another, in which their intentions became critically clear -- they were there to promote their pedophile advocacy. A quick search of their handle (they never used their real name) resulted in their being named on some pedophile "outing" blogs. I noticed he was also taking his very disturbing brand of advocacy on other sites.
I urged other people engaging him to please stop. I tried to ban his IP but he was/is using a cloaking device so I could not trace him, same with his email. His IP was so radom, I had to switch to moderation mode. I then posted that this person was a pedophile (keep in mind, they have not revealed their true identity anywhere and only identifies himself with a screen name, which includes "Pedophile" in the title.
He was so angry that I did this, that he started spamming our site continuously and threatened tht if I didn't take down the libelous comment, there would be consequences. Well, I took it down via password protection. I didn't want to delete it completely, in case I needed it for evidence down the road.
He still retaliated. He created a blogger account, in which the URL is my exact name, accusing *me* of being a pedophile and accusing me of these horrific sexual desires, POSTING AS ME and referencing my website. Although the material is written in third person, he signs all the posts as me and as I stated before, the URL is my exact name. I have written blogger (which is owned by Google) several times and they have sent a form letter back (via email) that says they don't get involved in online disputes and that I should contact this person directly and ask them to take it down. They're also espousing their freedom of speech, blah, blah, blah. (I wasn't aware that stealing somebody's identity for libelous reasons fell into that category.)
I cannot contact this person, I am SCARED of this person! Plus, I wouldn't even know how as they are using a proxy server.
To add insult to injury, this guy has "tagged" the blog (I don't know if anybody here knows anything about Tehnorati tags) so when you do a search for my name on Google, it comes up on the very first page! Like I said before, I own and operate a very successful online parenting site and this is not good.
I suppose I can't do anything about the heinous, libelous comments, even though it could seriously damage my reputation, given the superb credibilit of my site, but I really think that legally, it should be known that it is someone else that created that site and it is not me posting those comments!
Please advise...
I am reposting this story here as I am not getting any response on the libel thread that I originally posted this....
--------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am the co-owner of a very popular parenting website where we run articles written by well known authors and where I write and blog. A few weeks ago, I was monitoring some questionable comments on my blog, where a group of people (most likely the same person) was questioning the actions of a mother who pressed charges against an Internet predator who molested her child. Since the subject matter was so sensitive, I engaged the hostile party and warned them of crossing the line. Finally, another poster urged everyone to drop the conversation because it was getting strange.
Then, the person in question, started posting on another blog post and then another and then another, in which their intentions became critically clear -- they were there to promote their pedophile advocacy. A quick search of their handle (they never used their real name) resulted in their being named on some pedophile "outing" blogs. I noticed he was also taking his very disturbing brand of advocacy on other sites.
I urged other people engaging him to please stop. I tried to ban his IP but he was/is using a cloaking device so I could not trace him, same with his email. His IP was so radom, I had to switch to moderation mode. I then posted that this person was a pedophile (keep in mind, they have not revealed their true identity anywhere and only identifies himself with a screen name, which includes "Pedophile" in the title.
He was so angry that I did this, that he started spamming our site continuously and threatened tht if I didn't take down the libelous comment, there would be consequences. Well, I took it down via password protection. I didn't want to delete it completely, in case I needed it for evidence down the road.
He still retaliated. He created a blogger account, in which the URL is my exact name, accusing *me* of being a pedophile and accusing me of these horrific sexual desires, POSTING AS ME and referencing my website. Although the material is written in third person, he signs all the posts as me and as I stated before, the URL is my exact name. I have written blogger (which is owned by Google) several times and they have sent a form letter back (via email) that says they don't get involved in online disputes and that I should contact this person directly and ask them to take it down. They're also espousing their freedom of speech, blah, blah, blah. (I wasn't aware that stealing somebody's identity for libelous reasons fell into that category.)
I cannot contact this person, I am SCARED of this person! Plus, I wouldn't even know how as they are using a proxy server.
To add insult to injury, this guy has "tagged" the blog (I don't know if anybody here knows anything about Tehnorati tags) so when you do a search for my name on Google, it comes up on the very first page! Like I said before, I own and operate a very successful online parenting site and this is not good.
I suppose I can't do anything about the heinous, libelous comments, even though it could seriously damage my reputation, given the superb credibilit of my site, but I really think that legally, it should be known that it is someone else that created that site and it is not me posting those comments!
Please advise...