My friend's face and likeness are being used without consent – advice???

  • Unknown's avatar
    grapelions789 · Member ·

    So my friend did an interview for a student newspaper last year (when they were still at university), unaware that their name and image would be placed online as well. They didn’t sign any forms, and were not told the article would be published online—since the physical university paper is primarily used as trash or recycling material by the larger student body.

    My friend has contacted the editor in chief, the author, and various university administrators, all of whom are either unable or unwilling to remove the article, change my friend’s name, or take down their photo. These employees claim that it would set a precedent for anyone wishing to take down an article they don’t like.

    However reasonable that may be, my friend is LGBT, and the article discusses their identity in depth. As such, they are in danger of being discriminated against in the future; in most countries, this is grounds enough to be fired without warning or even arrested. My friend has graduated and now works in an industry where going abroad for extended amounts of time is a part of the job, so this is seriously affecting them psychologically and physically as they won’t be able to safely advance along their career track until this issue is resolved.

    Since the website is run through wordpress, I was hoping someone on here could offer any sort of assistance or advice? Thanks in advance!

  • Unknown's avatar
    acesabe · Member ·

    Hi, I am not a lawyer or well versed on the subject of what constitutes a breach of terms of service, but some things here are clear, firstly, if the website in question is not hosted at WordPress.COM, then I do not think that WordPress would be in any position to intervene, and then only if a clear case of of breach of terms could be legally demonstrated. Personally I would seek legal advice and information on what can be done in this situation, perhaps a good starting point might be the EFF
    https://www.eff.org/ . I don’t think the stance you have been fed form the university would hold much weight in a court of law and sounds more like they can’t be bothered to do anything on this matter.
    It does have to be pointed out that WordPress is simply software which can be used for good, bad or otherwise and that WordPress cannot be held responsible for what it is used for, within the realms of what is legal, and even then only if hosted by WordPress.com.
    Legal advice would seem the next prudent step imho.

  • Unknown's avatar
    grapelions789 · Member ·

    My apologies for not specifying: the website IS hosted on WordPress. I was hoping that this situation would breach a term of service or just, some basic code of ethics such that WordPress could offer some sort of direct assistance, such as a ‘cease and desist order’, or perhaps removing the article directly somehow.

    The university and its student paper are totally deflecting responsibility. The author of the post is currently unwilling to go on the record that they didn’t secure proper consent, and is actively avoiding every attempt to make contact

    thank you for the website reference. My only concern is that EFF seems to only take large cases that would have maximum impact due to their status as a nonprofit, but I’ll pass the info along and see what else I can dig up. Maybe find a nonprofit or lawyer more sympathetic to LGBT issues.

    I’m seriously hoping though, that my friend doesn’t have to take legal action, as that takes up so much time, money, and emotional labor. And this situation has already been going on for about a year…

  • Unknown's avatar
    justjennifer · Member ·

    Since the website is run through wordpress, I was hoping someone on here could offer any sort of assistance or advice? Thanks in advance!

    First please understand that “WordPress” comes in 2 flavors: the fully hosted WordPressdotcom (where we are ) and the open source WP (org) project. This support guide explains some of the differences between them: https://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

    So the first thing you should do is establish where the site is hosted, which usually can be done through a WHOIS domain search if it is using a custom domain or if the address is like “mysite.wordpress.com” or says “Blog at WordPress.com” in the site footer.

    If the site in question is hosted here on WordPressdotcom and is violating our Terms of Service you can report the violation following this guide https://en.support.wordpress.com/report-blogs/

    Let us know if you have any other question.

  • fstat · Staff ·

    Hi grapelions789,

    As @acesabe and @justjennifer already said we need to make sure that the site is indeed hosted here at WordPress.com. Can you please provide us with the site’s address so we can have a look?

    Thanks!

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