How to remove a post from Thedirty.com
TheDirty.com is a very popular gossip site where people post damaging information about others. Despite numerous lawsuits, Thedirty.com remains a thriving hot bed for negative, false, & defamatory information. Unfortunately, many contributors seeking revenge abuse the site by spreading false rumors and negative information about others. If your name is present in the post, the issue is compounded by the fact that TheDirty.com is a “highly authoritative” site in Google’s eyes – meaning that when you type your name (or name+city) the post on TheDirty.com will likely come up at the top of the search results, which can damage your personal reputation. Posts on thedirty.com are notorious for having a negative impact on an individual’s professions, job/business opportunities, future relationships, etc. due to the nature of the postings.
TheDirty.com is a site that allows anyone to post “dirt” on someone else, anonymously. Most often the poster is an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, upset with their past relationship.
If you have been posted on TheDirty.com, we can get you removed completely. TheDirty.com (and it’s owner Nik Richie) have been known to never remove any listings, even though they offer a removal link on their site. We have seen clients attempt emailing TheDirty.com multiple times without any results. Emailing TheDirty.com does not get you removed, it gets you a generic response informing you that: “At this time we are not removing any posts.”
The reason TheDirty does not remove posts is that the law (Communication Decency Act, Section 230) protects them as a public forum. Even if you hire a lawyer and/or sue TheDirty, you will have very little chance of removing posts from TheDirty. Your lawyer would really need to know reputation law, and the outcome would still be uncertain.
We use a proprietary legal strategy with the help of our attorneys that gets posts removed from TheDirty completely. We are probably the only company that can do this. We guarantee removal or a refund of your money. We only require 50% of the fees upfront for this service.
If you have defamatory postings on TheDirty.com, contact us today to see how we can help you.
The Dirty (thedirty.com) was being sued by Sarah Jones for posting false content that she claimed damaged her reputation. The content was sent in by a third party and posted by the owner of the website (Nik Richie).
The case has importance to the reputation management industry because it was the first time a judge had not accepted the Communication Decency Act (CDA) as a defense. The CDA protects sites, such as forums that accept user-generated content, from liability.
The case went through deadlock back in January 2013, and recently resurfaced on July 8. Late last week, the jury deliberated and found The Dirty to be liable for damages. They awarded $388,000 in damages to Jones.
Richie’s lawyers had asked the court to reconsider the CDA as a defense. They requested an immediate appeal, rather than defending the case a second time, but both were denied.
The main reason the judge didn’t allow the CDA as a defense is believed to be the fact that Richie acts as an editor of all content posted on the website The Dirty. He often modifies or adds his own comments to third-party submissions.
This case has been closely watched by the legal and reputation management industries as it could have major implications on how public forums post user submitted content in the future.
The success of this lawsuit is going to open a flood of new lawsuits against The Dirty and other sites like it that host third-party content. It is likely that such sites are going to take removal requests more seriously in order to avoid costly lawsuits.
It is a small victory for the reputation management industry as victims who have false and damaging content posted online may find it easier to remove.
For those of you who don’t know, The Dirty is a website where a person can post “dirt” about another person. It’s a website where you can post celebrity sightings, make fun of people, and call out somebody for cheating on you, etc. The purpose of the site, from what I can tell, is to provide people a forum to post truthful stories and others can read and post comments about them.
As a social media attorney, I regularly get calls and emails from people who claim there is a false post about them on The Dirty or a similar site and they want me to get it removed. Many of these people don’t want to get the police involved, file a lawsuit, or pay a lot of money to make this happen. I think a lot of them hope that a letter from a lawyer would be sufficient to get a post removed. Sometimes that works, but sometimes that is not the case – especially when it comes to The Dirty.
The people who run The Dirty and that their attorney understand the First Amendment. They tell their users only to post truthful information, but for the most part, they can’t tell when someone is telling the truth or not in a post. If the poster says what they wrote is true and the person they wrote about says it’s not, how would the people who run the website know who is telling the truth? The Dirty gets thousands of requests from people claiming that a post on the site contains lies about them. With few exceptions, they won’t remove a post simply because you asked them to.
The Internet has allowed us to learn more about ourselves and each other across a staggering number of mediums. Unfortunately, not all of those places are positive, and the rise of the "local gossip" or "burn" website has been one of the more troubling trends as the Internet has grown. One of the most notable sites is TheDirty.com, not least because it lets posters anonymously post photos and commentary on private citizens with no verification and little recourse. Here's what you need to know about the site and how to remove a post from TheDirty.com
What Is TheDirty.com?
Essentially, TheDirty.com is a celebrity and local gossip site run by one Hooman Abedi Karamian, better known as Nik Ritchie. The main page of TheDirty is a fairly conventional celebrity gossip site, but the real problem lies in the top banner, under "Cities."
Here's where the crux of reputation problems caused by TheDirty lies. The site was originally called DirtyScottsdale.com and was built on, essentially, posting unsubstantiated gossip. Anyone can submit pictures and words about any supposed citizen of these cities. As you might have guessed from the name of the site, it's not about what great people they are. TheDirty is supposedly dedicated to outing rude, unpleasant, and otherwise dangerous people, but it doesn't seem to verify any of its information, and that's a pretty serious problem, especially as the site's archives for various cities can date back as far as 2007.
That means a lot of mistakes people have made during high school and college are lingering on the Internet, without the knowledge of those in the pictures, and it makes deleting a post from TheDirty.com crucial to Internet reputation management.
How Is What TheDirty.com Does Legal?
Although TheDirty.com may finally be facing legal trouble, it's still largely protected under the law. To understand this, it's important to have a grasp of libel, which would be what TheDirty.com would technically be engaging in. Libel is, in fact, a crime, but it's a crime with a very specific and narrow definition that makes deleting a post from TheDirty.com through legal means difficult.
Libel is a crime that can be surprisingly tough to prove in court. First of all, the court differentiates between falsified statements of fact and statements of opinion. You are allowed, under the Constitution, to state that you don't like somebody on the Internet, and courts often are very specific about the difference between opinion and something presented as a fact when it's not.
Secondly, proving libel takes three steps for a private citizen: You have to demonstrate that the statement was false, that the statement caused some form of damage to you, and was not properly researched before it was presented. This is more complicated than you might think. Take as an example, after a bad break-up, a former significant other goes online and posts a long, messy entry on his or her Facebook that tells it entirely from his or her perspective. If they leave out certain facts that would explain your actions or justify your behavior, that's not libel, because they aren't making any false statements.
Similarly, proving harm from libel can be shockingly difficult. All of this makes taking a libel case to court time-consuming and expensive, well out of the reach of your typical citizen. So while the content may indeed be libelous, few of us have the time or money to get the court to prove it. You'll have to erase a post from TheDirty.com through other means.
Why Should I Delete Posts From TheDirty.com?
First of all, leaving a post up, whether it's completely fabricated or just extremely one-sided, can cause long-term damage to your online reputation, especially if it climbs up in your search rankings. This unverified post can be seen by employers, family members, and friends, and cost you jobs or lead to awkward and uncomfortable personal conversations.
Nor is the fallout limited just to you; your friends are defined by the company they keep, after all, and you want to be a credit not just to yourself, but to them.
Does TheDirty.com Ever Voluntarily Delete Posts?
Research we've done into the topic has found that posts that go up on the site tend to stay up unless challenged in some way, shape, or form, or deleted as part of fallout from another matter, such as lost site data. In short, you really should not expect TheDirty.com to delete a post without being asked to.
How Can I Remove A Post From TheDirty.com?
Technically speaking, you can remove a post by going through TheDirty.com directly; they have a post removal request page. It offers three options: that you're pictured in a photo attached to the post, that you own the copyright to the photos in the post, or that your personal information is mentioned in the comments of the post.
In theory, this gives you a strong way to get posts off the site. If even one photo has been taken from your Facebook or other social media presence, you own the rights to that photo, and can ask for removal. Similarly, if a friend is in your photos, you can demand the post be removed. And if somebody is trying to coordinate a harassment campaign against you, you have options.
Unfortunately, if you just don't like a post, TheDirty.com is largely protected under the law, specifically Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects websites from liability from the actions of its users. But that doesn't mean you're out of options.
Erasing A Post From TheDirty.com
You don't have to go through TheDirty.com to remove content from the Internet, however. In fact, you have several options to push a TheDirty post down in the search rankings and off the Internet. The first is to ask search engines to remove links to the offending content. This is up to each individual search engine, and you may not be able to remove the links, but it's worth asking.
A foolproof method, however, is to simply bury it. Most people searching for your name won't look past the first handful of results, and the further down you push a TheDirty link, the less it'll be seen. It may not be erasing a post from TheDirty, but it's the next best thing.
Have you been posted on TheDirty.com?
If you have been posted on thdirty.com, we can help you get removed. TheDirty is run by a guy named Nik Richie. Nik Richie is known not to remove any listings from the website even though he offers a link for requesting removals. Usually he will just send an automated response that states: “Thedirty does not remove posts at this time.”
We have rarely seen or heard anyone being successful to remove post on their own from thedirty. The only exception would be if child porn or something illegal was posted.
Even we have heard that many attorneys have failed to do so when sending legal letters. We have also seen some photographers who own copyright to their images be successful in removing only the photos via a DMCA copyright infringement notice, but not the actual post content.
However, we have figured out a legal method to get posts removed from thedirty completely that works. We have done this for many clients already. Evidence and/or references can be provided to serious prospects. The method that we use is highly proprietary so you would be asked to sign an NDA before we provide you any references. We are probably the only company that has figured out how to do this successfully.
Please be aware that not every post is a candidate for removal and if we feel your post could not be removed we would not sign you on. However, if we do sign you on we would only charge you upon success. There will be no upfront payment required.
If you have been posted on thedirty.com, then contact us today by completing the contact form on our website to see if it is a candidate for removal. Please make sure to provide a number and a good time to call you, so we can discuss the details with you over the phone.
TheDirty.com may be tempting to browse, but you certainly wouldn’t want to be a guest star. Reputation X can often remove thedirty.com posts, we have a very high degree of success because of relationships and a proven process. You could also try the do-it-yourself approach outlined below. But first, arm yourself with some helpful knowledge before you begin.
About TheDirty.com
TheDirty.com is a site where people can post photos, screenshots, videos, texts and other content, without attribution. It’s fueled by a cadre of regular users who call themselves the “Dirty Army,” and attracts more than 20 million page views per month.
Because users can post multimedia anonymously, TheDirty.com tends to draw jilted lovers and others seeking a bit of retribution. A typical post features a compromising picture or text with a short, pointed caption. Those mentioned or shown in the posts have to fight hard to win back their online reputations because this popular site ranks very high in searches.
California passed a law called "Online Eraser". It may be possible to use this defense, though TheDirty.com doesn't currently believe the law applies to them they may entertain it. You can learn more about the law here.
You Own the Copyright to Posted Material
You’ll need to send a formal DMCA takedown request to and wait up to 72 hours for a response. More information on that here.
Your Contact Information Appears in a Post’s Comments
Select the “My name, address or phone are listed in the comments to this post” button and fill out the requested information.
You Don't Actually Have a Sexually Transmitted Disease
But the post says you do. Thankfully this is something they will actually consider. You'll need to provide medical test results. Yep, to TheDirty.com. They say they won't post your medical results online BTW.
You Threaten Suicide If They Don't Take It Down
Nope. They don't care enough to take it down (but they say they care a little). They'll just report you to the police.
What Else Can You Do?
You can make a “request,” not a “demand,” to scrub your likeness from the site. Asking to be removed from TheDirty.com doesn’t guarantee that it’ll happen - most people we've talked with say that it doesn't work at all. Facts indicate that removal requests are rarely honored unless they involve a legitimate copyright issue, child pornography, STD's, or a law enforcement request. If your post doesn’t involve a copyright issue and you suspect that the attendant removal request is being ignored, you may have to take more drastic action—and possibly lawyer up. But we understand even that doesn't work in most cases either.
But It's Just Not True!
TheDirty.com doesn't seem to care as to whether something is true or not. According to their site "Any form of truth-based or fact-based request will NOT be considered {for removal}. The minute we see a removal request arguing that something said in a post is false, we immediately stop reading"
Legal Case Against TheDirty.com
A recent case offers hope that legal action, or even the threat thereof, may convince this site to remove your post. It involved Sarah Jones, a Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader who was the subject of a sexually explicit 2009 post on the site. She sued for an eight-figure sum, alleging that the site’s owner failed to respond to multiple removal requests and maliciously defamed her character.
In past suits of this nature, judges have typically sided with defendants—in this case, TheDirty. The reason is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which basically holds online publishers of indecent or defamatory material harmless under normal circumstances. This offers social media sites and other “passive” publishers lots of leeway about what appears on their sites.
But since TheDirty curates each submission from the Dirty Army, the Jones case judge determined that the site owner has a hand in creating TheDirty’s content as well. We won’t get into the legal reasoning here, but suffice it to say that a precedent has been created for future action. However, it’s too soon to determine whether the site’s setback will change the way it honors removal requests.
But according to TheDirty.com the ruling was overturned. So that's where that stands.
Those are part of the answers that thedirty.com website is providing to people that ask them to remove a post from their website .
We almost didn’t post an answer to this question. Why? Because it’s kind of like asking a cop who just arrested you whether you need to hire a lawyer. Would you really trust the cop’s advice at that point? But we are asked this question so frequently, we wanted to offer a few comments about it.
It’s no secret that there are lots of lawyers out there who are happy to take your money in exchange for helping you deal with an unflattering online post, either on TheDirty or another website. Some of these lawyers are good, and some are not. Same thing with SEO (search engine optimization) companies.
If you Google “how to remove a post from thedirty”, you will get TONS of ads and links for lawyers/law firms and SEO companies. Because we get so many removal requests, we are familiar with many of these folks (especially the lawyers), and we know that some of them are skilled professionals who can do a lot to help victims of online defamation. On the other hand, we also get tons of legal threats and demand letters from lawyers who clearly don’t have a clue about this area of law.
Unfortunately, because removing posts from TheDirty is generally not in our best interest, we really aren’t comfortable giving people advice on whether they should hire a lawyer, or whether they should spend money with an SEO company. In other words, it would be better for us if we only recommended BAD lawyers, so that’s why you really don’t want to ask us to recommend someone good.
What we can tell you is that we would NEVER advise anyone to hire a lawyer unless they have significant experience dealing with online defamation. This is a highly specialized area of law, and just because you have a lawyer friend who handles DUIs doesn’t mean he/she is qualified to help with online issues. If you’re thinking of hiring a lawyer, you should ask them how many cases of online defamation they’ve handled and what the outcome was.
Please don’t ask if you can pay us to remove a post. We don’t respond to these types of requests.
FYI — if you’re really interested, there is some legal authority that suggests a website owner CAN lawfully charge money to remove content. In fact, websites like Yelp have been accused of doing exactly that — either removing negative reviews for money, or boosting the prominence of negative reviews unless you pay for “advertising”. Is that extortion? It might feel like it, but so far most courts have rejected that argument.
Consider this holding from a recent federal lawsuit against Yelp which accused it of altering reviews for money: “Plaintiffs’ allegations of extortion based on Yelp’s alleged manipulation of their review pages — by removing certain reviews and publishing others or changing their order of appearance — falls within the conduct immunized by § 230(c)(1).” Levitt v. Yelp!, Inc., 2011 WL 5079526 (N.D.Cal. Oct. 26, 2011).
We do not want false STD allegations posted on our site. If someone posts a false story claiming you have STDs, we will gladly consider removing that information but only if you provide proof (medical records) which show the claim is false. We will not consider any STD-based removal request which is not supported by recent medical test results.
If you email us copies of recent test results showing a negative test for the specific STD referenced in your post, we will gladly consider removing that information. To be clear – we absolutely will NOT post your records; we will keep them strictly confidential and will use them only for the purpose of determining whether to remove something from a post.
Some critics of TheDirty have said this site encourages “cyberbullying”. In our view, this is kind of like saying that guns encourage murder. Well, guns certainly make murder easier, but without a person pulling the trigger, it’s not really the gun’s fault, is it?
Look — we do not want people to use this site for bullying. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite — if someone has done you wrong or treated you badly, you can post them here and let the world know about it. What better way to stop bullying than to give people a forum where bullies can be called out?
The real problem is that it’s very hard to tell what’s bullying and what’s not. Speech that might seem like bullying to one person is actually fair criticism to another. Any time someone criticizes you or says something unkind, it’s natural to feel bullied. But where should we draw the line? Should we prevent ALL speech that offends someone? If you think we’re making this more complicated than necessary, please keep in mind that many courts have found cyberbullying laws are unconstitutional.
In most cases, the staff here at TheDirty can’t get involved in deciding what is bullying vs. free speech. There’s just no way for us to take sides.
BUT NOTE — we understand that even though it’s hard to draw a clear line between fair criticism and unfair bullying, we know that bullying/harassment is still a serious problem with younger kids, especially those in high school. So, if you are a teacher or school administrator and you are aware of someone using our site to bully another student, please let us know ASAP by sending an email to from your official school email account. Always include a link to the post and provide a short description of what’s happening. We can’t promise to help in every situation, but if we see something that just doesn’t look right, we won’t hesitate to get involved.
As explained elsewhere on this page, the primary method for getting a post removed is to file a lawsuit against the author, go to court and prove your version of the facts are right and the facts in the post are wrong. If you do this, and if you obtain a court order or judgment that explains which facts in the post are true and which are false, in most cases (subject to our final editorial discretion) TheDirty will be happy to review the court order/judgment and we may remove some or all of the post in question. As always, to avoid any confusion caused by cases such as Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc., 570 F.3d 1096 (9th Cir. 2009) (Google it), nothing on this page or in our Terms of Service should be construed as a promise to remove any content. Removal is always done at our sole discretion.
But let’s say you can’t afford to go to court, or maybe you can’t prove the post is false because actually the post is true. What then? Do you have any other options?
YES — you always have the option of asking Nik for a “courtesy removal”. Despite what all the haters say, Nik is a good guy. He is a loving father with two small children, and Nik understands that we all make mistakes in life. The fact that you screwed up and got yourself posted on TheDirty doesn’t mean that you can’t turn your life around.
So, how can you submit a courtesy removal request? Simple — just follow these steps (and seriously — please read
ALL these instructions carefully….if you don’t, it is virtually guaranteed your request will be denied).
1.) Send Nik an email —
2.) Put “Courtesy Removal Request” in the subject line
3.) You MUST include a link to the post, NOT a link to search results and NOT a link to whole cities/categories.
EXAMPLES:
YES -> (this is a direct link)
YES -> (this is also a direct link; it is actually the best type of link to send)
NO -> (this is a link to search results)
NO – > (this is a link to an entire category/city)
4.) KEEP YOUR REQUEST SHORT!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE STORY. DO NOT SAY THE POST IS FALSE (Nik’s decision to help does not depend on whether the post is true or false). The best removal requests are usually one or two short paragraphs that explain why Nik should cut you a break.
More Important Tips:
** In most cases, if the post is less than a year old, it is extremely unlikely your request will be approved. Nik is willing to make exceptions in extreme cases, but the mere fact that you say the post is false is NOT an extreme case….because everyone says the same thing.
** If the post is true, then OWN IT. Admit your mistakes and explain how you have changed. This is something that Nik will respect.
** DO NOT spam Nik with multiple requests. If you sent the same request more than once, it will automatically be denied.
** If Nik wants to help you, he will usually respond pretty quickly (same day). On the other hand, if Nik does not respond within a day or two, that means Nik’s answer was no.
** NEVER send a follow-up email to “check on the status of your request”. Nik reads every request, and if he hasn’t responded to you, that means the answer was no.
Final Note: If you have an emergency and need to contact Nik directly, privately, and on an urgent basis, you may do so for a nominal fee via the new TipTalk application (currently for Apple users only):
Just download and install this app, then search for “Nik Richie”. Nik is guaranteed to receive and review your message immediately. If he wants to approve your removal request, he’ll let you know (removal requests submitted via TipTalk are reviewed immediately, but removal is never guaranteed in any case).
P.S. Probably the #1 most important factor that Nik looks at when considering a courtesy removal request is how old the post is. So, if you submitted a removal request without any luck, wait a few months and try again. When a post is several years old, Nik is MUCH more willing to help, especially if you are looking for a job or doing something where people are Googling your name.
For some reason, we have been getting a HUGE number of removal requests that say something like this: “Hey, can you please remove this post about me, and if not, will you at least remove my name?”
Look — removing a name is basically the same thing as removing the whole post. In the past, we were sometimes willing to help people by removing names (and we still do this as a courtesy in RARE cases), but it’s just not fair to do this for some people without do it for everyone.
We want to be fair to everyone, so we are no longer considering requests to remove names from posts.
We know that it’s easy to want to blame TheDirty for everything posted on this site. That’s understandable (sort of). But shooting the messenger is always a bad idea. Here’s why.
Under U.S. law, specifically Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230 (also known as the “CDA”), website owners and users are NOT RESPONSIBLE for false or inaccurate information posted by someone else. So, if someone posts false information about you on TheDirty, you can’t sue us based on that content.
Does this mean you are powerless if someone posts lies about you online? ABSOLUTELY NOT. You can always sue the author. The only catch is that you can’t blame the website where that content was posted. This rule doesn’t just apply to TheDirty. The same rule applies for material on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, basically any site that allows users to submit content.
Your lawyer says our position is wrong? Ask your lawyer to read this: Jones v. Dirty World, LLC, 755 F.3d 398 (6th Cir. 2014). And this: S.C. v. Dirty World, LLC, 2012 WL 3335284 (W.D.Mo. 2012).
Then ask your lawyer for a full refund.
NOTE — the news story shown above was published in June 2014, and the plaintiff did not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. This means the judgment in favor of TheDirty is final.
INTERESTING FACT — In the news story shown above, around the 1:05-1:10 mark, there’s a slow-motion video showing Nik and I walking away from the court in Kentucky (we were walking to our rental car). This video was taken a few minutes after we received the verdict informing us that we’d lost the case and the jury had awarded the plaintiff $338,000 in damages. There were tons of TV cameras outside the court and both sides talked to the media directly outside the court. Here are some additional comments I made about the verdict:
After I spoke to the media, we could see them filming us as we walked away. Obviously, having just lost the case we weren’t exactly in the best mood, but we still tried to remain calm for the cameras. As part of that, I leaned over and said something meaningless to Nik (like: “Hey, those guys are still filming us so let’s just keep walking and try to look normal… .”) That’s the inside scoop about the part you see in the WLWT news story. We get a LOT of removal requests. As of early 2015, this site contains about 150,000 unique posts and about 4.5 million comments. That’s a lot of content.
Of the thousands of requests we see, approximately 90-95% say the same thing — someone posted lies about me, will you take the post down?
We refer to these requests as “truth-based” or “fact-based” because at the end of the day, the removal request is usually based on some sort of alleged false information in the post.
Here’s our policy for these types of requests: with only a handful of narrow exceptions (i.e. STDs), any form of truth-based or fact-based request will NOT be considered. The minute we see a removal request arguing that something said in a post is false, we immediately stop reading.
Why? It’s not because TheDirty.com doesn’t care about the truth. Honestly, if we had a crystal ball and could allow people to only post comments that were true, we’d gladly do so. The problem is it doesn’t work that way.
We don’t consider truth-based requests for one simple reason — because we have no way of knowing which side is telling the truth and which side is lying. We have no ability to make credibility determinations or resolve factual disputes, so we will not consider any removal request that requires us to do either.
So, how can you remove a post? Simple — get a court order showing that a post is false. This means you must go to court and prove that your version of the facts is correct and show that the author was lying. If you do that, we will gladly review the court’s order and, subject to our final editorial discretion, remove any material that we deem inappropriate.
To be clear, although it is our policy to comply with any valid/lawful court orders, we can’t promise that we will always comply with every order or judgment we receive. Also, to avoid any confusion caused by cases such as Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc., 570 F.3d 1096 (9th Cir. 2009), nothing on this page or in our Terms of Service should be construed as a promise to remove any content.
No. For legal reasons, we do not accept phone calls relating to posts — PERIOD, no exceptions.
If you call us and start to ask about how to remove a post, we will immediately end the call. We don’t want to be rude, but we also don’t want any misunderstandings about what was said on the phone. All communications relating to posts must be done in writing, preferably via email sent to legal@thedirty.com.