Peoplesdirt.com is back, asking students the familiar question: “Got Dirt?” The controversial website re-launched after the Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler shut it down last spring.
“The guy who runs the site said that he would re-open the site with a Russian server,” Gansler said. “I’m not sure if that’s how the site is up again though.”
The forum created national controversy last year when a former Whitman student made death threats against assistant principal Jennifer Webster and several other people mentioned on the site. There were also many negative and hostile threads concerning specific students.
The site’s content spans all grade levels and impacts a wide variety of people. One sophomore said that she couldn’t avoid references to posts on the site about her.
“People would always bring it up and talk about it,” she said. “And no one believes you when you say something isn’t true.”
Despite some people’s negative experiences, others think that students are overreacting. One junior, who plans to continue using the site, noted that people take what’s posted on the site too seriously.
“Obviously it’s going to be damaging to some people’s psyche, but they really shouldn’t take stock in it,” he said.
Last spring, Gansler worked to close the site without violating the first amendment rights of the site’s owner. He tried to cut off the site’s resources and force it offline.
“We went to the companies who advertised on the site and alerted them to cyber-bullying and threats that were being made on the site,” he said. “Most advertisers were horrified to be on the site and immediately withdrew their ads.”
Gansler then contacted the site’s host, GoDaddy.com, and convinced the company to terminate its relations with Peoplesdirt.com because of contractual violations. People’s Dirt claimed to be an “educational bulletin board” in their contract with GoDaddy, but Gansler contended that the site was simply a forum for gossip.
Gansler had to work around the first amendment issues involved with shutting down a public forum. However, libel laws apply to the internet as well, according to Julie M. Carpenter, a partner at the Washington law firm Jenner and Block. She writes a journal on Internet law and practice.
“The internet is subject to similar restrictions that can be applied to anyone,” Carpenter said. “If you put content on the internet, you’re responsible for that content.”
Despite closing five months ago, the web forum is up and running again.
Gansler said that he would once again work to take down the site, but doesn’t think that will be necessary. The site no longer has advertising revenue, so it’ll eventually just run out of money.
Despite his success in shutting down the site once, Gansler notes that internet policing is repetitive and tedious.
“Controlling the Internet is like a game of whack-a-mole,” he said. “You hit it one place, and it pops back up in another.”
