NORTHEAST OHIO — After more than four years of operation, a popular Facebook page meant to be a platform for women to vet dates and share their experiences will be discontinued.
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Since March, "Are We Dating The Same Guy? Cleveland/Akron/Canton" has had several ups and downs.
In March, the moderator of the page, Paola Sanchez, put a pause to posting in the group.
She cited the temporary halt was to help clear moderators' minds and to implement needed changes.
"I'm very hopeful that we will be able to find a sustainable path for this community. However, we are facing realities that may not be easy to overcome, and sometimes it crosses my mind that the most feasible option might end up being to pause indefinitely," Sanchez posted to the group on March 7.
On June 18, moderators allowed posting again.
The difference then was that new, in-depth rules had been added to the page.
Sanchez noted in her post that she and her team had overcome a two-year-long federal lawsuit filed by a man who was posted in a Chicago-based version of the group. He claimed defamation.
That lawsuit was dismissed by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Following that came updates of at least 10 other 'Are We Dating The Same Guy?' pages being allegedly deleted by Facebook without warning.
"With the attacks continuing to happen, I cannot guarantee that this group will still be here tomorrow," Sanchez wrote on Sept. 3.
The Cleveland/Akron/Canton page managed to survive, including through a 2024 defamation lawsuit filed by Matthew Napier of Wadsworth.
Napier told News 5's Tessa DiTirro in September of 2024 that he had been wrongfully characterized.
"She made it sound like I was a danger to people with the terminology she was using, and people started ridiculing me and they started making fun of me," he told her. "It was a big bash fest pretty much."
I circled back up with Napier on Wednesday for details as to what happened to his lawsuit.
"I need to talk to my attorney. We're kind of on a standstill right now to figure out what we're going to do," Napier said.
With or without next steps in terms of litigation, it appears the franchise will soon disappear.
"Due to recent issues, I have to decided to shut down all of our groups," Sanchez wrote this week in the Cleveland/Akron/Canton group. "I will write out a detailed explanation of all of the issues that led to this decision at a future date, once I have the energy to do so."
I reached out to Sanchez twice this week for information, but she has not responded.
While members of the group await answers, hundreds have taken to the comment section sharing their thoughts on the matter, including Madalyn Jackson.
"Very sad because not only do we have to be cautious regularly, but this was a way for women to come together and just really speak honestly about how they feel, their experiences, and it's very hard to come forward to strangers at that and tell people what you've been through. You also build a community, but you're also helping other women, which is just great overall to be together as one," Jackson told me on Wednesday.
She's been in the group for two years.
Jackson said she joined the group as a senior in high school.
"I was obviously just starting the whole dating thing, and I just wanted to be careful because there's a lot of things that you don't know. It's just better to be safe," Jackson said.
Jackson told me she never posted in the group, but merely watched as the posts continued daily.
"I did see a lot of women posting anonymously about men that did a lot of terrible things to them, that they did not file charges due to fear, and they were putting the word out to other women to beware of their experiences, and a lot of women usually would come forward and say, 'I had the same experience.' It saved a lot of women from having to go through that trauma that they did," Jackson said.
She believes the rules were followed as best as they could be.
The problem she often saw were women who personally knew men being posted in the group sharing it with them, even though the rules prohibited screenshots.
The screenshots are how Napier found out he'd been posted a couple of years ago.
He's happy to hear the page's discontinuation is in motion.
"It's about time that it happened, just for the fact that it's become more serious than just actually finding out if you're dating somebody," Napier said. "It's very important that we get these groups taken down, just because it's getting to the point to where the cyberbullying is getting way too much, and there's a lot of people affected by it."
Napier points to a recent case reported by a local TV station in Norfolk, Virginia, where a woman allegedly killed her husband days after posting his dating profile in an 'Are We Dating The Same Guy?' group.
He said depending on how everything crumbles with the Facebook group will determine how he moves next in court.
"I'm going to see how she (Sanchez) handles this and how Meta handles this as well. If they (the Facebook groups) stay down, then I may just back off," Napier said. "But there's a lot of these little offshoot groups as well in the area and all over the U.S., all over the U.K. as well."
Napier said while he has continued waiting for these groups to be removed, he started his own group called 'Victims Of Are We Dating The Same Guy,' but it has since been involuntarily taken down.
"Mine was actually taken down due to a trademark violation," Napier said. "I was exposing what was going on in those groups. They're wanting to silence the people who are actually showing what's really going on behind the scenes."
While discontinuation is seemingly in play, Jackson said she hopes more groups like it will rise.
She wants the rules strengthened, though.
"I think there should be some precaution on how to keep men out of the group, and somehow maybe make it to where we can't screenshot anything," Jackson said. "Speak your truth. Don't let a man ever settle you down to be afraid to speak your mind. You are always more than what they make you out to be, and just be yourself all day, every day."
If I hear back from Sanchez regarding the reasons behind the shut down, I'll Follow Through.
