Tag: reputation-management

A 45-page ‘gossip’ thread about two influencers filled with anonymous abusive comments, has sparked a four-year battle to unmask the operator of the website Tattle Life.

In 2021, a couple targeted by Tattle Life users complained to the website and in 2023, commenced a case for defamation in Belfast’s High Court, obtaining default judgment and damages. Following a further court hearing this month, they publicly revealed the identity of the website’s anonymous owner, having resorted to private investigators in their effort to unmask the individual.

The website is one of many forums now offering a place where people can post purportedly anonymous “gossip” about influencers and celebrities. The practice is also popular on social media websites like Reddit and Instagram with whole sub-Reddits, threads and accounts dedicated to the practice.

Although this activity is advertised and defended online by users as mere gossip, the judge in this case found that it was anything but and said:

“They (the claimants) have both been grossly defamed and severely harassed by these posts. The destruction of reputation and the harassment has caused very severe upset and distress.”

Going on to find the website’s motivation was solely commercial, the judge added:

“This is clearly a case of unpeddling untruths for profit”.

The claimants were awarded £75,000 each for general and aggravated damages, and £75,000 each in exemplary damages making a total of £300,000. They also received an indemnity legal costs order.

It is reported that the couple also obtained a freezing order over the website’s lucrative advertising revenue of £1,077,173 in an effort to enforce the damages award against the owner, an English citizen reported to be living in Asia.

The judge criticised the slow nature of the process by which the claimants were forced to seek justice:

“This should not happen and there should be a speedy way to get to the bottom of these incidents with a view to closing these sites down and preventing such online vilification and abuse being perpetrated over a significant period of time and even being perpetrated after court proceedings have been issued.”

Those affected by abusive or harassing ‘gossip’ threads are often met with a lack of response from the sites involved, many of which are based in the US. Legal action is often the only effective recourse in these cases.

Read the judgment on damages and further reporting.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) has upheld a complaint against Mail Online over a collage of pictures on their online front page that gave a “misleading impression” that a ‘hero’ security guard who stopped a knife attack was actually the perpetrator.

The IPSO rejected the newspaper’s defence that this was made clear in the full article when users clicked through. The decision highlights the risk of free-standing headlines and images that trade accuracy for impact.

The article

Mail Online’s mobile home page published the headline “Knifed at random” accompanied by a collage of three photographs. The largest photograph was of a man’s face, while the other images were smaller and included a pixellated image of man being led away by police. The text below read “Leicester Square ‘knifeman’ who stabbed mother and daughter, 11, did not know them, police believed”. Users could then click through to read the full article in the usual fashion.

The IPSO found that the composite image and accompanying text on the home page gave the “misleading impression” that the man pictured prominently was the perpetrator of the attack. In fact, he was a security guard who had intervened and was hailed as a ‘hero’.

The publication argued that this was clarified in the text of the article itself, but the IPSO did not accept this as “the connection between the man pictured and the story was not explained on the [home] page.” A caption had originally been present, but it was removed when the photograph was enlarged “for editorial emphasis”.

The IPSO stated: “While the article to which readers could click through went on to identity the security guard and his relationship to events, this was not sufficient to rectify the misleading impression given by the homepage.”

Mail Online was required to publish a correction.

This complaint serves as a reminder that the press has a duty to take care with its online front pages, which now frequently combine images and headlines, by including any important context.

The ruling can be found here.