Does site pursue justice or spite?
By Shelley Emling, Special for USA TODAY
These days, you can look to the Internet and express your fury to millions of people across the globe.
That's what Cindy Chapman did. The 41-year-old mother of two from Hampshire, about 70 miles south of London, has devoted a Web site to Paul Hafiz, with whom she lived for seven years and who is the father of her daughter, Abbey.
Even the site's name, Selfishman.com, doesn't pull any punches.
Under the banner "Is this the most selfish man in Portsmouth?" Chapman gives a detailed account of their relationship, from its romantic origins at a pub in 1991 to caustic details of their split in February 1999. "His daughter thinks her daddy is magic. But he couldn't care less if she lost her home and lived in a bed and breakfast just so long as he can drink himself into a coma," says the first page.
Chapman spent two months creating the site, which attributes a litany of faults to Hafiz, from a drinking problem to a failure to financially support their daughter, now 6. "This whole thing was eating me up inside," Chapman says. "I created this site as a kind of therapy."
Has it worked? She says the site's worth every penny of the $30 she spends each month to maintain it.
She insists the site was not born of malice, but was set up as part of her campaign to win child support. Still, even the old joke on her answering machine may hint at an abiding anger toward all men: "If they can put one man on the moon, why can't they put the rest there too?"
Revenge server: Chapman's site says Paul Hafiz won't support their daughter. |
Mostly, Chapman says she has been frustrated by a government that's
been unable to garnish the wages of Hafiz, who works for himself. "I
want to assist women who are in the same fix that I am left in," she
says. "We can use the power of new technology to make a stand for
women."
For his part, Hafiz has mostly remained silent. "How would you feel
if you were featured on a Web site like that? I am sticking to what I
always say, and that is to make absolutely no comment about this at
all," he says.
Attorneys say Hafiz could sue Chapman for libel, but he probably wouldn't
win. "As long as what she says is accurate, and as long as she can
prove what she says, then Chapman's site is OK," says Tom Cassels, a
defamation specialist. Furthermore, he says, name-calling on the Internet
is generally acceptable under British law.
According to various Internet companies, a site that is overly abusive can
be removed. But sites generally are not monitored. Someone would have to
call the abuse to the companies' attention.
Chapman's site has gotten plenty of reaction. In one recent week alone,
she received more than 300 e-mails. "Most of them are very supportive
and are from women who've had similar experiences," she says.
But not everyone is a fan.
Chapman: "This whole thing was eating me up inside. ... I created this site as a kind of therapy." (AP) |
"The Web site does nothing to improve their child's position and
could easily encourage other women to do gross harm to their children by
deliberately exacerbating conflict with the other parent," said Wendy
Pearce-Butler of Westbury in a letter to Chapman, who has received mostly
positive responses from men and women.
Chapman's isn't the first site created to vent anger. At Disgruntled (www.disgruntled.com),
for example, you can read rants on such subjects as office romance,
revenge and the "biggest turkeys" for whom employees have
worked. But Chapman's site may be the first to give such an exhaustive
account of an ex's wrongdoings.
Chapman plans to develop a database called Timewasters, through which
people can avoid dating losers by finding out if they've got a history of
violence or money problems. The site would be akin to U.S.-based sites
such as WhoIsHe.com and WhoIsShe.com,
where backgrounds can be checked with the click of a mouse.
"This is an ongoing thing for me that I will never drop,"
Chapman says. "I never want what's happened to me to happen to my own
kids."