Tattle Life is a gossip site that many will have never heard of until a landmark defamation trial in Belfast this month.
Donna and Neil Sands bought a defamation case against the site – and won. They were each awarded £150,000 (€176,000) in damages, with the court saying their costs should also be covered.
The married couple who live in Northern Ireland said that cruel, untrue and hateful anonymous postings over several years on the site left them fearing for their safety, their businesses and their relationships and impacted on their mental health.
The Sands’ claimed that Tattle Life is a “hate-filled forum where abuse, harassment, vapid tittle-tattle and invasive content targeting individuals posted by anonymous users is widespread and permitted”.
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But first their legal team had to track down the site’s owner, who like the 375,000 “Tattlers” on the site hid behind a fake name.
Much forensic data digging later, and the couple were able to name the owner as Sebastian Bond, a British national, who while called to attend court, didn’t and is now believed to be in Thailand.
Journalist Aoife Moore knows exactly how the Sands family feel.
She too has been the victim of an onslaught of online abuse on Tattle Life, with entirely untrue gossip spread about her personal and professional life.
She tells In the News how that impacted on her and what the defamation case means for her. And while this is the first successful defamation case against the gossip site, she says it will not be the last.
Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.
