How one disgruntled person destroyed the online reputations of 145+ people, aided by “complaint sites” in the US and platforms like Google that rarely intervene
Outrageous lies destroyed Guy Babcock's online reputation. When he went hunting for their source, what he discovered was worse than he could have imagined. Tweets: @kashhill , @zoeschiffer , @dabeard , @mmasnick , @nfergus , @nedraggett , @nicoleperlroth , @mattrosoff , @frankpasquale , @ryanqnorth , @overingtonc , @emilybazelon , @oliviasolon , @kimmasters , @j_bloodworth , @chriswelch , @drjengunter , @jasonschreier , @dispositive , @davidenrich , @audreyhasnews , @edwardnh , @ericliptonnyt , @rhodri , @chriswelch , @ceciliakang , @chriswelch , @kashhill , @kashhill , and @kashhill Tweets: Kashmir Hill / @kashhill : I've been working on this internet horror story for months, but the people in it have been living it for more than a decade. https://www.nytimes.com/... Zo Schiffer / @zoeschiffer : This piece is terrifying, not least bc Kashmir got swept up in the harassment campaign while reporting the story: https://twitter.com/... David Beard / @dabeard : Long after she was fired and lost her home, Natalie Atas started making up terrible things about perceived enemies & posting them on sites—sites that make money by “mitigating” (accepting money) from defamed people to take the postings down. https://www.nytimes.com/... @kashhill Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : This is quite a story. I've faced something similar going back years that I don't talk about because it just starts the person going again. Unlike others though, I don't blame 230 for it. That's not the issue. https://twitter.com/... Niall Ferguson / @nfergus : If you're one of those people who continues to defend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, please do read this harrowing tale of online character assassination: https://www.nytimes.com/... Ned Raggett / @nedraggett : Worth your time. And of course, as the last paragraph or two shows, ‘action’ often only happens when there's a high profile countervailing force asking high profile questions. And only then. https://twitter.com/... Nicole Perlroth / @nicoleperlroth : Wow. Another must read @kashhill who herself was targeted by a slander superspreader. https://twitter.com/... Matt Rosoff / @mattrosoff : Time to remove liability protection for user-generated content: https://www.cnbc.com/... https://twitter.com/... Frank Pasquale / @frankpasquale : Critically important reading for understanding section 230, and how US First Amendment fundamentalism imposes massive costs abroad. https://twitter.com/... Ryan North / @ryanqnorth : This story starts the way you'd expect but then escalates to truly wild levels! https://www.nytimes.com/... Caroline Overington / @overingtonc : Astonishing yarn. And then the woman with the grudge went after the journo. And her editor. And her husband. https://twitter.com/... Emily Bazelon / @emilybazelon : This from @kashhill is heartbreaking. I'm pretty persuaded Section 230 wouldn't do much to address disinfo and hate speech. But it sure would help with this scourge of defamation. If the tech cos want to keep immunity ... https://twitter.com/... Olivia Solon / @oliviasolon : Wow. This @kashhill story of an enormous campaign of online harassment / defamation and the damage it has caused is chilling https://www.nytimes.com/... Kim Masters / @kimmasters : Amazing story about the damage a sick person can do from a library computer, and the tech companies that allow it. https://twitter.com/... James Bloodworth / @j_bloodworth : Brilliant but disturbing article about the contemporary phenomenon of resentful stalking online. I got in the crosshairs of someone like this in 2019 and had to put up with a year of abuse. https://www.nytimes.com/... Chris Welch / @chriswelch : I'm admittedly biased because I was listed on one of these sites for a time. But if you think that Section 230 as it stands today is perfect, your opinion is bad. Some corners of the internet deserve to be purposefully kept in the shadows. Jennifer Gunter / @drjengunter : A frightening post about one troll who delighted in cyber harassing and defaming hundreds of people and how easy it is to do, via @NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/... Jason Schreier / @jasonschreier : Horrifying story about the damage that a single unhinged person can do thanks to unregulated, extorting, bottom-feeding websites like “Ripoff Report.” Great reporting by @kashhill https://www.nytimes.com/... Gautam Hans / @dispositive : This is so unsettling. No one does better in reporting these things than Kash, though. https://twitter.com/... David Enrich / @davidenrich : A decades-long grudge + mental illness + slander-loving websites + Google = vast devastation for dozens of innocent people. Trust me, you are going to want to read this epic tale by @kashhill https://www.nytimes.com/... Audrey Cooper / @audreyhasnews : This story is ... I'm speechless. Must read. Now, please. https://twitter.com/... Edward Harrison / @edwardnh : “There is no fact-checking. The sites often charge money to take down posts, even defamatory ones... Ripoff Report, like the others, notes on its site that, thanks to Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, it isn't responsible for what its users post” https://twitter.com/... Eric Lipton / @ericliptonnyt : Super important story... https://twitter.com/... Rhodri Marsden / @rhodri : A chilling, brilliant piece. https://twitter.com/... Chris Welch / @chriswelch : Section 230 should be amended so that websites like Ripoff Report, Cheaterbot, ReportMyEx, etc. can't exist. 🙃 Either that or their results should be completely hidden in all major search engines. https://www.nytimes.com/... Cecilia Kang / @ceciliakang : This is an OMG story about speech, a terrifying narrative that is actually a story (intended or not) about Section 230. Read it. By @kashhill https://www.nytimes.com/... Chris Welch / @chriswelch : Any company that rests on a such a trash defense like this should be allowed to be sued out of existence. https://twitter.com/... Kashmir Hill / @kashhill : The woman goes after someone's reputation online, and those of their family members, and of their colleagues. As I reported the story out, defamatory posts started appearing about me. And my husband. And my editor. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Kashmir Hill / @kashhill : In September 2018, Guy Babcock discovered that he and his entire extended family had been branded pedophiles, scammers, thieves and sexual deviants online. When he investigated, he discovered a 25-year-old grudge. https://www.nytimes.com/... Kashmir Hill / @kashhill : How one woman destroyed the online reputations of more than 145 people and why it's been impossible to fix them: https://www.nytimes.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The report supplies a concrete mechanism behind online reputational harm: a single actor used complaint-site publishing and search persistence to make false allegations durable. It extends earlier coverage of online public shaming that damaged individual lives from viral social punishment to an allegedly sustained, searchable campaign.
Related coverage had already questioned the responsibility of platforms that function as a new public square. The complaint-site removal fees make the issue more than moderation failure: victims faced a system in which publication, discovery, and remediation were handled by different parties.
First-order effects
- More than 145 targets faced continuing reputational damage as false allegations remained available on U.S. complaint sites and in Google search results.
- Ripoff Report and similar sites turned removal into a paid service, placing the cost of addressing defamatory material on the people targeted by it.
Second-order effects
- Google's limited intervention means complaint-site operators can retain the benefit of search discovery while leaving victims to pursue removal through each publisher's process.
- The case sharpens scrutiny of the distinct roles played by content hosts and search platforms, rather than treating online defamation as solely a dispute between a poster and a target.
Third-order effects
- If complaint publishing and search indexing remain separately governed, effective reputation protection will increasingly depend on accountability across the distribution chain, not only on removing an original post.
- The pattern strengthens the policy pressure behind debates involving Section 230: platforms' legal and operational roles diverge when harmful content is hosted by one service but made consequential by another.
The trend: Online reputation harms are becoming a distribution-layer governance problem, as complaint-site publishing combines with search visibility and paid removal mechanisms.