TheDirty has lost a lawsuit against Sarah Jones who claimed damaging posts were posted on thedirty.com about her that destroyed her reputation. This is a major victory for the reputation management industry as the judge has allowed the case to go through, while thedirty had claimed immunity due to the Communication Decency Act (CDA) which protects public forums from any liability when 3rd party content is posted. Due to the owner Nik Richie making edits to posts, the judge did not accept the CDA as a defense. Sarah Jones had previously admitted to having sex with a minor and got 5 years probation. However, the specific damaging post on The Dirty was prior to that incident and stated that Sarah Jones as a cheerleader for the Bangles had sex with every member of a football team. The jury awarded $388K to Sarah Jones, but collection might be a problem as Nik has stated that he is $1 million in debt and that he would never pay a penny to Jones. The Dirty plans to appeal the case.
Our CEO Pierre Zarokian has published two articles on Search Engine Watch and Examiner about this subject:
TheDirty.com lawsuit loss will have a major impact in reputation management on Examiner