The man who sued 27 women, one man, and several online platforms including Facebook and GoFundMe after Facebook users in an “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” group called him “clingy” and “psycho” had his case dismissed by a judge earlier this month. He then doubled down with a class action lawsuit on the same day.
Nikko D’Ambrosio of Illinois filed a complaint on January 8 claiming that the owner of “Are We Dating the Same” Facebook groups and website, which allow members to post images and descriptions of men who they’re dating to crowdsource “red flags or tea,” is responsible for libel, slander and doxing against him.
The judge in the first case dismissed the complaint on January 25 because the court did not have subject matter jurisdiction, but D’Ambrosio’s lawyers immediately refiled, this time as a class action lawsuit. Among the defendants listed in the new class action are Paola Sanchez, who started the “Are We Dating the Same” groups in 2022, and adds multiple “fictitious” names of women from the Chicago group his photos were posted in that he claims were also “responsible in some manner” for the damages, as well as Blake Millbrand, who the complaint claims provided software development to the Are We Dating the Same website and/or the related Spill the Tea site.
D’Ambrosio is still the only plaintiff named, but it’s brought on behalf of all others similarly situated, and Trent Law Firm, which is representing D’Ambrosio, is seeking others with stories like his in Illinois, who also want to come forward and claim they’ve been doxed, defamed, or had their intellectual property posted in these groups. The new complaint, like the previous, dismissed one, includes screenshots of people in the Facebook group posting that D’Ambrosio was “clingy” and that he called a woman names when she didn’t want to spend the night with him.
“It is the position of our client that Paola Sanchez, Blake Millbrand, and their corporations have unjustly personally enriched themselves at the expense of donors across the nation, and that Facebook has facilitated, promoted, and editorialized content for the groups in an effort to maximize its advertising revenue and collect large quantities digital information about users for the purpose of commercial profit,” Marc Trent, partner at Trent Law Firm, said in a statement about the class action lawsuit.
After I wrote about D’Ambrosio’s first case, several people who are either members of AWDTSG groups or have been posted in them reached out to share their experiences. One person said they’d been “posted, trashed, and doxxed” in one of the groups. Another claimed he was posted with negative comments in another city’s group by an ex-girlfriend. “Not being able to defend myself when I have verifiable evidence that she's doing it out of spite because I rejected her is a terrible feeling,” he told me, and said the thought women in his area, as well as family or coworkers, could see the posts “makes me want to crawl in a hole and die."
A woman who reached out as a member of the Chicago group told me that the group seemed mostly uneventful. “80% of the men posted usually don’t get any feedback from women. They’re mostly just your average guy that no one knows. Occasionally someone who knows the guy will say ‘I know him from work/school/neighborhood/family and they’re alright,’” she said. A small percentage get negative feedback, and an even smaller number are flagged as being truly abusive or violent, she said. “Basically I use the group to keep an eye on anyone who gets posted who might be dangerous, or to see if any men I know gets posted.”
