Court Dismisses Lawsuit Over Online Review of a Chicago Dater–D’Ambrosio v. Rajala

The plaintiff in this case is Nikko D’Ambrosio. He recently served time in prison for tax issues.

Separately, he brought a lawsuit over the “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” Facebook group, run by Spill the Tea, “where women can empower each other and keep each other safe from toxic men.” (You can see the group here, but it appears that the group moderation has broken down, so recent posts are garbage).

Abbigail Rajala made the following post about D’Ambrosio to the Chicago subboard, with 100k+ members:

We met organically in Chicago two and a half months ago. Very clingy and very fast. Flaunted money very awkwardly and kept talking about how I don’t want to see his bad side, especially when he was on business calls. He came to see me yesterday and I explained how I didn’t really want to stay the night. I just wanted to spend the day together, and this was his response… [followed by screenshots with unkind remarks purporting to come from D’Ambrosio]

According to the court, D’Ambrosio “sued anyone remotely associated with those posts for all possible, imaginable claims, including the woman who dated him and her parents, women commenting on posts, the operators of the Facebook group, and Facebook itself.” It does not go well for him.

Illinois Publicity Rights

the fact that his name and photo appear in a Facebook group is not enough to allege an IRPA claim. His “identity must help sell something—whether it is that product or a separate product or service.”…

D’Ambrosio does not allege that Meta was using his identity to sell or advertise a product. Instead, D’Ambrosio’s theory is that a third-party post about him necessarily drove user engagement and therefore Meta’s advertising revenue. But that does not equate to Meta using D’Ambrosio’s identity as an advertisement….D’Ambrosio’s name and photo were not used to entice Facebook users to purchase a product

Defamation

D’Ambrosio can’t allege defamation per se because “the women in the “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” Facebook group were commenting on D’Ambrosio’s dating etiquette, not his professional ability….Abbigail Rajala did not accuse D’Ambrosio of job-related poor performance or an inability to function at his job, just his commentary on how he might appear to her.” (Plus, the court notes that while he’s in prison, his job prospects are limited).

Also, Rajala’s comments were opinions, not verifiable facts. “Abbigail Rajala gave her opinion of what D’Ambrosio was like to date.”

Doxing

The relevant statute applies when a defendant intentionally published the plaintiff’s “personally identifiable information without the consent of the person whose information is published.” These anti-doxxing statutes pose significant danger to online discourse such as the disclosure of truthful negative facts, especially when plaintiffs can weaponize private rights of action. Fortunately, it proves inconsequential here:

• “D’Ambrosio never alleges that Defendants published his full name in the Facebook group”
• “The statute goes on to list what types of information could be linked to a person, including social security number, home address, phone number, email address, or employment information. But D’Ambrosio does not allege that any such information was ever posted in the group.”
• “Public and innocuous photos, like the ones of D’Ambrosio,” don’t qualify as PII.
• The statute requires scienter and harm attributes that D’Ambrosio didn’t allege.

Despite the dismissal, I view this case as a warning sign of how anti-doxxing statutes will contribute to lots of meritless and problematic litigation.

Strict Products Liability

“D’Ambrosio alleges problems with Meta’s app and algorithm, but his allegations do not establish that these are products and not service platforms.”

Negligence

“D’Ambrosio alleges Meta was negligent in numerous ways when designing, developing, and monitoring its app, algorithm, and social media platform.” D’Ambrosio mishandled the pleadings, but also, he said he never used Facebook, which eliminates the possibility that Facebook owed him a duty.

Section 230

The court says it doesn’t need to address Section 230 because the claims all fail on their prima facie elements. ONCE AGAIN, Section 230 reform would not change the outome of this case.

Summary

While “D’Ambrosio objects to the idea that women in Chicago, and nationally, have a private invite-only forum in which they are able to discuss and potentially warn other women against men’s dating habits and that he personally detested being discussed in that group, the statements made about him do not amount to defamation, false light invasion of privacy, or doxing.”

Implications

This is not a #MeToo case, but it’s closely related to that genre. In both circumstances, women are trying to hold men accountable for actual or perceived misbehavior, and men are weaponizing legal tools to undermine or avoid such accountability. Section 230 has played a key role in helping empower women, but as this court ruling shows, it’s not the only legal tool to protect those conversations from legal overreach.

Still, merely being sued is itself a form of punishment and suppression, and a clean legal victory for the women here doesn’t actually remediate their legal victimization as defendants. The risks of defendant-victimization is something that every legislature should evaluate closely when creating new private rights of action, i.e., the legislatures should game out how plaintiffs can misuse the law and provide mechanisms for defendant-victims to be made whole. I fear legislatures have done an incomplete job of this adversarial wargaming when enacting new sui generis laws like anti-doxxing statutes. Defendant-victimization is also a main justification for broadly applicable anti-SLAPP laws. If Illinois’ anti-SLAPP law was not robust enough to protect the defendants here, the Illinois legislature ought to reconsider it.

Case Citation: Nikko D’Ambrosio v. Rajala, 2025 WL 1383286 (N.D. Ill. May 13, 2025)