Women teamed up to protect themselves from men on the internet. Now, the men are suing them

Last week, a woman took to the internet to try and locate her runaway husband, whom she accused of ghosting her while she was pregnant with their second child. “I’m really about to test the power of Facebook with this one,” Ashley McGuire wrote. “Last year, when I was pregnant with our youngest baby, he decided being a husband and a dad wasn’t the lifestyle he wanted any more and he ghosted — like gone without a trace.”

But McGuire wasn’t just posting directly to Facebook, hoping for the plea to go viral. She was posting to “Are We Dating The Same Guy?”, a Facebook group filled with tens of thousands of women, who use the group every day to assess the men they’re dating. This was the Texas arm of the group, but there are multiple, localised iterations, including a London version. The husband, a British chef named Charles Withers, was tracked down in less than a day.

This post was on the more dramatic side of Are We Dating The Same Guy’s usual content, which tends to follow the format of women posting pictures of the men they’re speaking to on dating apps with the caption “Any tea?” (meaning gossip or intel). The women duly respond, coming forward to say if they have had any bad experiences with the men. They do occasionally share good experiences too, but generally a post that goes un-commented on is the closest thing you can get to an endorsement.

Conversations originally kept to the girls' Whatsapp group chat are now broadcast to 80,000 people. The rules advise against allegations without proof, but many statements are taken at face value. And because the group is a safe space for women to warn each other of men’s bad behaviour, there are no men admitted to the group, so no one can directly rebut claims against themselves.

But testimonials from users of the groups speak of its profound importance: women being saved from abusers, cheaters, and, according to them, convicted sex offenders. Now, the group had tracked down a most-wanted deadbeat dad.

There was an internet pile-on, as you might expect. McGuire didn’t want that, she had only wanted to locate her missing husband so she could successfully file for divorce. “I sincerely appreciate all your support, but please do not make threats, spread hate, or try to go out and locate him,” she wrote. But the information about Withers was already on the internet, written in indelible ink.

Luckily for McGuire, Withers doesn’t appear to be the litigious type. The same cannot be said for other men who have been featured in the group. Dr. Stewart Lucas Murrey, a California resident, is seeking $2.6m in compensation from over 10 members of the group, in claims that the women defamed him and discriminated against him on the basis of his sex. Some of the women involved in his lawsuit didn’t post about him, but commented below an original post that described him as being a bad date. The women involved in the suit have set up a Gofundme for their legal costs, which has amassed $5,200 so far.

Elsewhere, a Chicago man called Nikko D'Ambrosio is attempting to sue multiple women from the group after he was described as “clingy” in a post on the page. Along with defamation, D'Ambrosio is claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy by false light, civil liability for doxxing, misappropriation, unjust enrichment and public disclosure of private facts. He is also attempting to sue Facebook’s parent company, Meta, for facilitating the group. His lawyers have described D’Ambrosio’s inclusion on the group as a “digital scarlet letter” on his reputation.

Both cases have made it onto the “manosphere” — the subsection of the internet that promotes masculinity, misogyny, an opposition to feminism — and have been gaining traction. Online, Dr Murrey is being referred to as “Dr Chad” by manosphere members, a compliment meant to imply that he is the pinnacle of masculinity.

The support has turned into financial backing via Murrey’s Gofundme, which he is also running to support his legal fees (he has raised $5,500 so far, $200 more than his multiple defendants). Manosphere Highlights Daily, a misogynist YouTube channel, has been following the case’s court coverage. “Ladies, you need to thank Amber Heard for this…” one comment on the channel’s coverage reads. “Next paycheck I'm donating 50 dollars. Justice for men!” says another. “They have money for makeup, enough clothes that they don't wear the same shirt twice in one year, $300.00 a month in hair and nails, 50 purses, but they can't afford a lawyer,” one user adds.

Because of the group’s existence in the UK, including an 87,000 strong London version, British defamation lawyers are warning that women participating in groups are just as at-risk of litigation. “The same rules apply on the internet as they do in the real world,” says Alanah Tannous, a senior associate at Vardags, “so staying within the law, sticking to the truth and speaking honestly about your experiences is critical. If not, users could certainly find themselves exposed to a claim in defamation in the UK.”

It should be fine if the accusations are demonstrably true, but this is risky when so many comments and posts on the group warning about men come without “receipts” or evidence. “For example, if a woman posted a comment in a Facebook forum about her experience with a man claiming that he ‘ghosted’ her after they were intimate on the first date, she must be able to prove — one, that they were in fact intimate on the first date, and two, that she was ‘ghosted’ after the first date in order to rely on the truth defence,” Tannous explains.