Women have always looked out for one another. It’s never been risk-free.

Until last month’s data breach at Tea, an app for women seeking to warn one another about disreputable men in the dating scene, the people with the biggest axe to grind with such platforms were, well, men.

But calling out bad behaviour usually entails some risk of retaliation. So when thousands of user-submitted images – including photos of users’ ID cards – were hacked and circulated online, women were handed a sharp reminder of the personal risks of participating in a familiar practice: protecting other women from cheaters and abusers.

Women have always relied on their friends for details about the men they’ve dated. Could a data breach, threats of lawsuits and growing outrage be enough to thwart this age-old practice online?

The Internet boom of the early 2000s enabled women to amplify what had previously been informal whisper networks among girlfriends. Almost overnight, one woman was able to warn hundreds of others about certain men in an area, or she could seek information about men she was considering going on a date with. Two decades later, the practice has expanded into anonymous forums, apps and even spreadsheets that are shared across the Internet.

“Are We Dating the Same Guy?” Facebook groups, in which women expose men while sharing stories of infidelity and abuse, exist in hundreds of cities around the world. And content creators on #DatingTok delight in sharing details of their failed dates, sometimes even going so far as naming the men in question. One of the more famous public pile-ons came in 2022, when a 25-year-old man nicknamed “West Elm Caleb” was accused by several women on TikTok of love-bombing them.

Some of these networks focused on specific industries, like the 2017 crowdsourced spreadsheet that allowed women to anonymously accuse men in the media industry of sexual misconduct. In a matter of hours, dozens of names were added, some prominent, with the claims ranging from “weird lunch dates” to accusations of sexual assault and stalking.

Even websites in the early 2000s like WomenSavers.com (which called itself the “world’s largest database ranking cheating men”) and DontDateHimGirl.com became early popular forums for women to anonymously submit stories about their cheating partners.

As the reach of these networks increased, so did the risks. Perhaps that was to be expected: Allegations that once would have been shared among friends were suddenly being posted on the Internet, with government names attached, for thousands to see.

Tasha Cunningham, the creator of DontDateHimGirl.com, said that when she started the website in 2006, she had no idea what she was getting into. Initially, she thought the site could be a safe place for women to exchange information, but after a few years, things became “too unwieldy” for her to manage.

The website was criticised in the press for hosting fabricated claims, and Cunningham faced several lawsuits accusing her of soliciting false and defamatory content. But she did not have the bandwidth to verify the identities of the site’s users, she recalled, to say nothing of her ability to actually confirm the claims they would post about men.

“Two decades have passed, and it’s still the same issue around the privacy,” Cunningham, 51, said in a recent interview. “You’re always going to have that issue of the privacy and vetting who the people actually are. And so from the person who is managing the site, that’s going to be a very difficult thing for you to get past.”

Cunningham, who now owns an advertising agency in Miami, said that DontDateHimGirl.com had figured in approximately 10 lawsuits during its run. Although none of the suits naming her as a defendant were successful, the legal battles wore her down and occasionally left her unable to recoup attorney’s fees. Exhausted and overspent, she took the website down in 2013.

“I just couldn’t put my energy toward a project when people weren’t using the site as it was supposed to be used,” she said.

Whatever shape they might take, initiatives born out of the impulse to call out unsavory men often face a bumpy road. The media men list, for instance, was taken down just 12 hours after it was created – though not before ricocheting across the industry, resulting in think pieces that both praised and condemned the document, employer-led investigations and at least one lawsuit. Members of “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” groups have been hit with lawsuits for defamation.

While some men have undoubtedly been caught up in false or overstated accusations, the instinct that women have to warn one another about harmful men doesn’t come out of thin air. Many have experienced the sexual abuse, misconduct, infidelity and general impropriety that kick-started entire movements, including the #MeToo movement.

“I think the principles behind it are great,” Cunningham said. “Trying to have safety for women who are dating is super important. The site has, over the years, been really instrumental in a couple of major different cases with men.”

Data breaches, fabricated claims or users with fake identities likely won’t stop these networks from existing or new ones from forming later on. Women are still trying to warn each other and something always goes wrong, but the impulse to raise awareness remains. – ©2025 The New York Times Company

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.