Huntsville, AL realtor shows us why we don't comment on news stories on social media

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TLDR: Realtor comments on a news story. Random person doesn't like her comment. Researches realtors life and posts a sensational story on Revenge website ShesaHomewrecker.com, Another random person finds it and sends it to her bosses, husband and other friends. Realtor loses $200k in income and pays $100k in legal fees to win case. Revenge website says they will not comply.

Monika Glennon has lived in Huntsville, Alabama, for the last 12 years. Other than a strong Polish accent, she fits a certain stereotype of the All-American life. She’s blonde. Her husband is a veteran Marine. Her two children, a boy and a girl, joined the military as adults. She sells houses—she’s a real estate agent at Re/Max—helping others realize their own American dream.

But in September 2015, she was suddenly plunged into an American nightmare. She got a call at 6 a.m. one morning from a colleague at Re/Max telling her something terrible had been posted about her on the Re/Max Facebook page. Glennon thought at first she meant that a client had left her a bad review, but it turned out to be much worse than that.

It was a link to a story about Glennon on She’s A Homewrecker, a site that exists for the sole purpose of shaming the alleged “other woman.” The author of the Homewrecker post claimed that she and her husband had used Glennon as their realtor and that everything was going great until one evening when she walked in on Glennon having sex with her husband on the floor of a home the couple had been scheduled to see. The unnamed woman went into graphic detail about the sex act and claimed she’d taken photos that she used to get everything from her husband in a divorce.

If you’ve ever argued with someone online, you’re probably not surprised to hear that neither person was convinced by the other person’s arguments. Glennon forgot about the exchange and went about her life. Rosenblum did not.

Rosenblum stewed over the exchange for a week. It was a low point in her life; a single mother with two sons, she was, by her own account as posted on Facebook, then “in the throws of full blown methamphetamine addiction” and making very poor decisions (including, in 2016, kidnapping). She spent a few hours researching Glennon online and soon knew enough to fake having met her in real life. It was the online version of road rage; instead of pulling a gun on another driver, Rosenblum decided to drop a bomb on Glennon’s reputation. Rosenblum submitted her fabricated story to She’s A Homewrecker, and then, according to an account she later gave to a local news outlet, forgot about it.

Glennon won her lawsuit against Rosenblum and Lupian, with a federal court in northern Alabama finding in her favor on claims of copyright violation, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and interference with her business. The judge ordered websites that published Rosenblum’s story to remove it. She’s A Homewrecker has already taken down the post, but it remains up on BadBizReport. BadBizReport’s website states that it doesn’t respond to court orders and that “there’s no way in hell to get off of BadBizReport once you’re listed on it,” adding “American lawyers make us laugh.”