A lawsuit for $123 million has been filed against Facebook and a former friend by a woman for “revenge porn,” according to legal documents acquired by TheWrap.
The former friend of the woman created a pornographic site using edited pictures of the woman, according to the lawsuit. The social media site Facebook took months to deactivate the site as well.
The lawsuit was filed by Meryem Ali and it names the former friend, Adeel Shah Khan and Facebook as defendants.
The lawsuit claims that the former friend created an “imposter Facebook site” pretending to be Ali. The friend then used edited and photoshopped pictures that depict the real face of the plaintiff. The face is attached to nake body shots.
Ali discovered the imposter website when her family and friends were invited to become friends with it. She mentions multiple requests sent to Facebook to take down the site, but it took the company months to deactivate it.
This did not occur until the Houston Police Department was brought onto the case and a subpoena was filed against Facebook to find out who was operating the site.
Ali is asking for “full justice for the significant trauma, extreme humiliation, extreme embarrassment, severe emotional disturbances, and severe mental and physical suffering … due to the unconscionable activities and gross failures of Defendant Adeel and Defendant Facebook.”
The lawsuit also says that Ali “seeks to expose the frailties and failures of the falsely advertised, and false promoted privacy mechanisms” of Facebook, and the damages that result from these mistakes, “Facebook’s upper management, officers, directors and key employees have long known about and essentially concealed.”
The lawsuit claims that “this lawsuit is intended … to get Defendant Facebook, it’s officers, directors, management, employees and subscribers (with media attention) to stand up, take notice and pay attention to the serious privacy violations concerns involved in revenge porn situations.”
She is represented by David T. Altenbern from Altenbern & Associates, P.L.L.C.