Defamation case underscores how reality is hard to discern in online dating, says anthropologist | CBC News

An anthropologist who studies online dating says a defamation case against the administrator of a London, Ont., Facebook group that warns women about online daters underscores how difficult it is to discern what’s true from what’s being advertised online. 

The private Facebook group, “Are we dating the same guy? London, Ontario” describes itself as “a place for women to help protect and empower each other of [sic] men who have wronged us.” Even though the group is hidden from public view and can only be seen by members or those invited to join, it has more than 10,400 users. 

CBC News has reviewed the messages at issue in the closed group through court filings in the case.

Members post first names and pictures, often from men’s online dating profiles, to the group to find out from other users whether the man is dating multiple women or, in some cases, whether he is who he claims to be. 

In a lawsuit filed in a London small claims court on Aug. 11, a 41-year-old man alleges he was defamed by the London group after he says he was called names, accused of sending lewd photos and of being a bad parent after his likeness was uploaded to the group. 

Truth in advertising

He is suing one of the group’s three female administrators for $35,000, alleging in his statement of claim that the group “does nothing but trash men.” 

CBC News has spoken to both the plaintiff and defendant in the case and has chosen not to name either party, due to the nature of the allegations and to shield them both from further online scrutiny.

A lack of transparency and safety measures built into dating apps has led women in communities across the continent to form such groups for mutual protection, said Treena Orchard, an anthropologist and associate professor of health studies at Western University who has studied online dating. 

These groups have emerged as a way for women to safeguard one another.– Western University anthropologist Treena Orchard

“They’re all over Canada. They’re all over different parts of North America,” she said. “They often emerge in response to the lack of safety and security protocols. There’s no way to call out some of the bad players on a lot of these dating platforms, so these groups have emerged as a way for women to safeguard one another.”

Orchard has used several dating apps herself and has written a book about the experience. Dating apps are poorly designed, offer limited information about a person and have loosened our collective grasp on reality by making us question what is actually true, she said. 

“You have a very small amount of space to explain yourself, what you’d like, sometimes the pictures aren’t that great. So it’s really hard to know, who is this person and is what they’re saying — is it real?”

Women forced to do their own research

Women looking to date someone online will often do their own sleuthing, often on social media sites to try to build a more complete picture than what the dating app is telling them, Orchard said.

“[It’s] a way to gather data and try and get a more complete and hopefully accurate sense of who these people are and if they’re worth the risk.” 

What the law essentially states is that words matter.– Greg Monforton, a Windsor, Ont., based personal injury lawyer

How dating apps are used can tell us a lot about things that “really have nothing to do with dating at all,” Orchard said. 

“It’s about different ways of being vulnerable in the public sphere,” she said. “When you’re advertising yourself on a platform with thousands and thousands of people who are going to see you and you’re telling all sorts of things that may or may not be true, you’re just really opening yourself up for a lot of opportunity to kind of get caught red-handed.”

However, if being “caught red-handed” turns out to be misinformation or the public discussion about a person goes too far and harms that person’s reputation, participants in that discussion can expose themselves to legal risks. 

Why ‘words matter’ when it comes to the law

“What the law essentially states is that words matter,” said personal injury lawyer Greg Monforton, the co-founding partner of the Windsor, Ont.,-based law firm Greg Monforton and Partners.

Monforton said with the proliferation of social media, the risk of defamation has become more prevalent because it gives regular people the power to publish and spread information globally, potentially reaching millions of people in seconds. 

If someone has been defamed, he said, there are three things a plaintiff must prove to establish in front of a court that their reputation was damaged. 

“Firstly, that the impugned words do in fact refer to that person. Secondly, that the impugned words tend to lower that person’s reputation in the eyes of a ‘reasonable’ person.”

“Finally, that it was communicated to at least one other person other than the plaintiff.”

By contrast, he said, there are two defences in an any defamation case, with the first always being truth, which is an absolute defence. 

“A true statement cannot be defamatory essentially,” adding that in online cases specifically there is a defence called “innocent dissemination,” which applies to sharing information that wasn’t prepared by the person who posted it.

“In today’s world of online activity, individuals and businesses frequently share information that they themselves did not produce. An example of this might be a news article that incorrectly states that John Doe or Mary Smith has been arrested for the murder of someone and you share this information.” 

Monforton said the best advice is probably the same as your mother’s — if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it. 

“Be very careful about what one posts on any form of social media about someone else.”