Additionally, he tried to blame Rajla for his reply to another woman on the thread, which linked to a mug shot of a convicted rapist. Despite the mug shot link displaying another person’s name and photo, D’Ambrosio claimed she was defamed and suffered “emotional distress, emotional harm, loss of professional opportunities, and damage to her reputation and relationships.”
Their goal, in Hamilton’s opinion, was “to sue anyone remotely associated with those posts for all possible, imaginable claims, including the woman who dated him and her parents, the women who commented on the posts, the moderators of the Facebook group, and Facebook itself.”
In his blog, Trent acknowledged that these Facebook groups were “created to help women date safely,” but he claimed that some women misuse the groups to launch harassment campaigns by accusing them of spreading sexually transmitted infections to innocent men or forcing women to have abortions.
“They’re facilitating people to contact their bosses, their employers, just to compound the damage,” Trent alleged.
Importantly, D’Ambrosio failed to allege any concrete harm caused by the post, and there is no evidence that the post caused inappropriate contact in the real world.
He also never argued that anything the women said about him was a lie. It was too late in the game, his lawyers tried to save his case by arguing that it was possible that the screenshot shared by Rajla was doctored. But the panel rejected that argument because D’Ambrosio had ample opportunity to dispute the authenticity of the text in the first trial, and never did so before oral arguments during the appeal.
Eric Goldman, an Internet law expert monitoring the case, said D’Ambrosio’s case is similar to other lawsuits in which men have tried and failed to remove critical posts from Facebook groups branded “Spill the Tea,” such as the Chicago-based “Are We Dating the Same Guy” group. Time and again, these people fail, primarily because posts like Rajala’s are considered opinions protected by the First Amendment and defamation laws in states like Illinois.
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