The Daily - A Vast Web of Vengeance, Part 2

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

Inside the world of complaint sites and what can be done about the “the bathroom wall of the internet.”Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background: Listen to part one here. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Previously on The Daily. I saw that post accusing our son of being a pedophile. My colleague Kashmir Hill told the story of a family whose reputation was ruined online. All this stress about worrying about who is it, you know, and who could hate us so much. By a woman with a vendetta that stretched back 30 years. It just all made sense to me all of a sudden. That woman was eventually arrested, but the defamatory post she wrote, live on. Today, in part two, Kashmir explores the dark world of websites that profit from this kind

of gossip and slander, and why, despite all the damage they do, these sites can operate and thrive without consequences. It's Monday, May 3rd. So, Kashmir, just to bring everyone up to speed, last time we talked, you told us about these websites that are known as complaint sites that exist solely to host outrageous, defamatory claims about people. And what you told us is that anyone can post on these sites, and they can say anything they want without any supporting evidence. Yeah, these sites are the bathroom wall of the internet. And they have names like WTF Cheater, Dead Beads Exposed, Predator Alert. And they exist to rank high in Google search results.

And in that original conversation, you told the story of a single family that had all of these false allegations made about them on these kinds of websites. And I think that got a lot of us wondering, beyond the story of this one family, just how big a problem all of this has become. Well, we wanted to understand the scope of this and how many people it was affecting. So we looked at a dozen of the most active complaint sites to figure out how many people had been written about. And we found posts about more than 47,000 people. So that's 47,000 people's online reputations having been directly assaulted. Yes. And these 12 websites that we analyzed were just a small sliver of this larger industry. And so we began digging into it even further. And what did you find? How does this industry even get started? Where does it all begin?

Well, I think of the founding father of the industry as this blogger named Nick Ritchie, who started a site in 2007 called Dirty Scottsdale, which was about this town in Arizona where he lived. And it was a site to report the gossip about people who went to clubs and people who liked to party. And he would ask for tips saying like, tell me who's a dirty slut and who has an STD. And he would just publish them. And I guess it was pretty popular because he ended up changing the name to The Dirty and started reporting on people all over the country. So I think I know the answer to this, but are any of these posts on The Dirty vetted or verified or in any way fact-checked? in any way fact-checked? No, nothing that's going up on the site is getting fact-checked.

So you don't know what's true or what's false. I suspect a lot of what's up there could have been false. And so inevitably, the dirty gets sued for defamation. And Nick Ritchie's whole defense points at something called Section 230. And this is this foundational law of the internet that says that websites aren't liable for what people are posting. And that works. The Dirty wins its case using Section 230. It keeps going, keeps being successful. And that inspired all of these imitators to rush in

and create their own versions of the dirty. Hello. Hey, it's Kashmir. Hi. Hey, how do you pronounce your first name? Is it Cyrus or Serene? Cyrus, C-Y-R-U-S, you know, like Miley Cyrus. Yes, I also knew it. Like this guy, Cyrus Sullivan, in 2008 starts a site called stdcarriers.com.

starts a site called stdcarriers.com. Something I started after I found out that my ex didn't disclose to me that she had a condition. He had a new girlfriend, and after they slept together, she told him that she had herpes. Right. It completely ruined my summer, right? Oh, my gosh. And I was kind of like, well, there needs to be a way to warn people about people like that. They're doing that kind of thing. So of course, people could post whatever they wanted to STD carriers. But you know, whether it was true that somebody had an STD or not, people who are posted about there were very upset about it.

What did your, did you have supportive people in your life? Like, what did your family think about all this? They didn't like it. They didn't like it. Why? They didn't like it. They, I don't know. I mean. They didn't see it.

Was there anything redeeming about like, hey, I'm doing like web entrepreneurial kind of stuff or? Yeah, they didn't like it at all he was making money off of ads he said he wasn't making that much money until 2012 there was an article in the village voice about std carriers that landed me a guest spot on anderson in march when anderson cooper had him on a talk show he had at the time. He had that daytime talk show a few years ago. Remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like him trying to be Oprah or something.

What was that like? Why should anybody believe anything you say? Because I don't, because I don't lie to people. You know, honestly, he was a real jerk, but it was good for the website. So this whole thing seems to be working for him. So he starts creating more sites, including one for reporting undocumented immigrants. I didn't really know anything about immigration when I built the site. I just had this template for it could be reused for complaining about anything, whether it's STDs or immigration or

whatever. But he also told me he was drinking heavily and things started to fall apart. The thing that really went wrong for him is that he got in a fight with a woman who had been written about on the STD carrier site. Actually, somebody who was harassing me and I just, I'd had enough and I'd had too many to drink. I was up all night drinking and set the death threat. So he ended up threatening this woman. He sent her an email where he wrote, now I have no choice but to come to your house armed and put an end to you once and for all. A couple hours later, I retracted the death threat, but by that point, legally speaking, it was way too late. So in 2013, he wound up going to prison.

Wow. So at this point, Cyrus is in prison, and I'm presuming no longer running these websites. Yeah, the site shut down. So what happens to this industry that he was a part of? So this industry that he was a part of? the reputation management industry. And this is an industry that basically exists to try to get these posts removed, to try to improve people's Google results. Right, because once a website like stcarriers.com has impugned you,

you suddenly need a company to unimpugn you, and that would be a reputation management company. Yes, exactly. And they have a lot of different tactics. But one of their tactics is simply to pay a site like STD Carriers to delete a post. And I actually got to see this firsthand because when I did the story we talked about last time about this family and how they were attacked, their attackers started coming after me and after my husband. And so there were quite a lot of posts about us on these sites, like some about my husband that call him a sex addict and a drug addict. And after that, just out of the blue, my husband got a text message from a company that said

it could help him with his online reputation. And so he did a call with that company and they quoted him from $7,500 to $25,000 to clean up his online reputation. Wow. I presume you did not take them up on the offer. We have not paid. He keeps getting texts, actually. He got a call the other day. They're asking if he's still interested. And even though you're not pursuing this, the way it would work in theory

is that a reputation management company would take these thousands of dollars from you and then go pay a complaint site to take those nasty posts down. That's the way it's supposed to work. Right. You have these terrible posts about you. You're kind of feeling hopeless.

And all of a sudden, this kind of hero appears saying that they're going to save your reputation. And they're asking for a lot of money. So it just seems like something really fishy is happening here. It looks very symbiotic. So I start looking into it and what I found was that something even darker than I expected was going on. We'll be right back. So Kashmir, you said that as you looked more and more into this already awful industry, you found that it had evolved into something even darker than what you have been describing to us.

So what did you learn? So I started looking at all these complaint sites. There's so many, it's hard to keep track of them. And I kept seeing the same kind of ads for reputation management services. And one of the ads I kept seeing was for a company called Repsy. And so I start really digging into this company and trying to find out what it is. And as soon as I

get to their website, I start seeing a lot of red flags. Like what? Well, they have all these employees listed, and none of them seem to be real. They don't have an online existence. They have stock model photos. And Repsy has this YouTube page with a bunch of promotional videos. Hey, this is Matt from Repsy LLC. Including one of a guy who says he works there. His name is Matt Hamp. If you or your business is the target of unjust online slander, negative reviews, and unfavorable legal woos, we can help

you correct things. And I look into the sky. Hi, I'm Luis, and thank you for visiting my site. If you're here, it's because maybe you're in need of a spokesperson to represent your business. And discover he's a paid actor who does my video spokesperson services. You choose the outfit you would like me to wear. For example, a business suit, just a shirt and tie like this, a polo shirt, a doctor's outfit, or even... So Repsy is just a mirage of a company.

And then I start looking for customers, like who has paid Repsy to get their post deleted? And I talked to a number of people and they all kind of tell me the same story, that they reached out to this company, they paid thousands of dollars, they got posts taken down, but then the company started harassing them, threatening to repost these negative posts about them if they didn't pay. And that eventually these posts did start reappearing. Hmm. What did you make of that? So I was working with a technologist on this story, Aaron Kralik, and he started doing a forensic investigation into their site.

So we are looking at, you know, web domain histories and little clues like who runs the ad publishing networks. And over time, we linked Repsy to a number of other sites and a number of other complaint sites. So it looked like the people who are running Repsy were also running sites called Report Cheater, WTF Cheater, Realtor Scam, Dirty Scam. Basically, we had proof now that this reputation management service was also running complaint services, the same complaint services it said it could remove content from. So what you're stumbling into is that a reputation management company, Rep-Z, is also behind websites that are hosting horrible allegations about people. This is somehow a company that is doing both. Yes, they're on both sides.

So they're not just a middleman in some cases. They're just the entire business. I mean, it is kind of a new form of digital extortion. So as your forensic analysis proceeds, what did you find about who actually controls Repsy and the affiliated websites? So we start tying all these sites to a guy named Vikram Parmar. He's a 28-year-old web developer in Gujarat, India. And when I look him up online, I discover he actually has

criminal charges against him for creating a fake government website, encouraging people to apply for jobs to India's version of the FBI, basically, and then was charging people to apply for jobs there. So he's still facing criminal charges for that. But now he's also running these online businesses. Hi Vikram, how are you? So I reached out to him to talk to him about it. Hi, I'm good. How are you? I'm good. He's pretty dodgy about it all and was in denial that reputation management is part of what he's doing. And do you run Repsy? No, ma'am, no.

I know. Actually, I didn't even know why people are associating me with Repsy. There is no any link. I didn't develop the website. I didn't take any payment for their site. But the evidence suggests it's actually quite a large part of what he's doing. I think I thought you were associated with Repsy because the domain name registration is associated with your email address. Yeah. What?

Email address? Yeah, your email address. So his story just kept changing. At first he said, oh, I don't do reputation management. And then he said, oh, I've done it a few times. And then he kind of admitted that he ran a complaint site. Ma'am, this is actually, if you want to do something, you actually want to do something,

then just, you know, I'm giving you some names. Try to find them out. But he told me what a lot of people I tried to talk to in this industry did. He said, I'm not doing anything wrong. Here's a list of the people that are doing it wrong. Go talk to them. list of the people that are doing it wrong. Go talk to them. You know, it's 1027 here. I need to go for a dinner. Can we hang out by tomorrow, if you don't mind? Sure, sure. This same time. So it was a very strange and unsatisfying interview. Okay. Okay, thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Brooke.

Okay, bye. And then he has not been willing to talk to me again. So this strange and unsatisfying interview with Vikram is the closest you came to understanding who was behind Rep-C, this company that really epitomizes what this industry has become. Yes, this is an industry where

they don't want you to know what is going on. Okay, so after all this reporting you've done, and after analyzing this whole industry, and actually hunting down the people behind it who don't want to be hunted down, I wonder what you have concluded, if anything, can be done about this industry. So there's three things that could happen.

The first is that law enforcement could go after these sites because what they're doing is basically extortion and that is illegal. But this is unlikely to happen just because it would be such a complicated investigation. You have actors all around the world hiding their identities on these sites.

It would be a very difficult case to prosecute. And I just think that law enforcement has other priorities. Number two is that the search engines could make these results harder to find. I mean, these are horrible sites. They shouldn't be appearing as high in search results as they are. And Google has taken some steps to try to address it. They say that they will downrank sites like this if they start getting a lot of court orders about a site. But if you don't have much about you online, these sites still just rank really high. A third thing that could happen is a change to the law that these sites claim protect them, Section 230. And how likely or unlikely is that,

that Section 230 might be changed? I think it's unlikely because of the really important role that Section 230 plays in just protecting the internet. The idea of changing it strikes fear in the hearts of many, and not just the big a site like STD carriers. And there's not an easy way to get rid of that and keep in a company like Facebook or Twitter. Changing a law isn't as surgical as that. Changing a law isn't as surgical as that. So as a journalist, I'm often very critical of technology and technology companies.

But I also think that they sometimes get blamed too much for all the ills of society because they are the platforms for human beings doing bad things. because they are the platforms for human beings doing bad things. We seem to think there's just some algorithm they can tweak or some law that we can change that'll make these bad things stop happening. But at the end of the day, it's us. It's us doing bad things, And that is not easily fixed. I run STD carriers. You still run it. I turned it back on last year. Cyrus, for example, he got out of prison a few years ago,

and he's back in the business. I run that, and I run PN Cop Watch that just is for like police and prison abuse stories. He's got one website where people can post about alleged police misconduct. And he's got another one called Foul Speakers. And this one just copies and pastes allegations posted on other complaint sites. And it just spreads the allegations even further. It's surprising how many people believe something they read on the Internet, even though they believe something that's just so stupid. And he has a reputation management service.

You can pay him $700, and he'll get posts out of search engine results for you. So it's safe to say that this industry and the people who are behind it are not going away anytime soon. No, it seems like a shady corner of the internet that's here to stay for a while. Cashmere, thank you. We appreciate it. Thanks, Michael. We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. After encouraging Americans to leave India last week because of the country's COVID-19 outbreak, the Biden administration will begin banning travelers from India this week. But the ban has multiple exceptions, including American citizens and their families, students, and some academics, raising questions about its effectiveness. On Saturday, India once again broke a global record, reporting more than 400,000 new infections in a single day. And Florida has become the latest swing state to adopt restrictions on voting since President Biden's victory last year. Republican state legislators there passed a bill similar to a measure adopted by Republicans in Georgia that would make it harder to vote using absentee ballots and require voters to request

absentee ballots for each election rather than receive them automatically. Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said he would soon sign the restrictions into law. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.