Owner of Tattle Life named

[BeardofHagrid]

The owner of hate forum Tattle Life has today been legally named as Sebastian Bond. He also goes by the alias Bastian Durward. He has tried to flee to Asia to avoid paying his legal costs.

https://goss.ie/featured/everything-we-know-about-the-owner-of-tattle-life-as-he-is-finally-named-423238

From what has been published about the case the injunctions relate to the freezing of assets. Of course, this couple might try to obtain a list of posters who they feel defamed them and then try take action against them but they certainly wouldn’t be able to get a list of every member on that site. Why should they get details of Jane Bloggs who is a member and has only posted on the What Trainers are you wearing thread or might only have posted a few harmless gossipy type comments on threads not relating to them ? Tattle isn’t currently an illegal site, if it was, it would have been shut down ages ago. Obviously, there are posters on that site who have been defamatory and truly horrendous but certainly not all.

Given this couple are from NI and Ireland is a relatively small country, there’s a high chance that some of the posters from the thread are personally known to them in some capacity. Imagine the fall-out, are you really going to take legal action against a family member or your neighbour a few doors down, for example ? The same with a lot of the threads about more smaller, local bloggers/influencers. You could possibly find the worst of the offenders are known to them.

Then you can be sure that some bloggers/influencers have accounts of their own there and maybe a few posts too. If there was to be a mass reveal, they wouldn’t be excluded just because there’s a thread there about them.

This is the way I read it as well. The high court was to make sure everything had been done appropriately. This couple haven't only just found out the name of this guy, it's just reporting restrictions are now lifted. I would argue if they've got the names of the Tattlers that caused the defamatory statements, they would know them already. Plus they'd only be able to go after the people who have said specific defamatory things about them and their business. Not someone who doesn't like a certain influencer.

Also I would say they literally can't out everyone on there. Some people haven't posted in years or have migrated away from the influencer threads and just gone into the general topics.

Again if they out everyone, what happens to here, to Reddit, to football team forums, Facebook pages, spotted pages where people insult others on the daily, X, Daily Mail online, any tabloid newspaper?

What is the difference between a Daily Mail reporter writing that Katie Price looks frumpy to someone online saying that? (This is an example btw)

People who have used Tattle to harass influencers and admitted they've called social services or reported them, then I absolutely agree they should be dealt with.

I've found worse here TBF. Maybe it's the threads I'm following there but I've never noticed anything but friendly posts 🤷‍♂️

The judges report makes it clear that tattle states that they have a team of mods who work 24/7 to take down abusive hateful or harmful content - but they clearly don't. Apparently the threads about Neil Sands were up for four years and were only taken down last month.

The site makes a lot of money from ad revenue. Over 200k in a 6 month period. So it's been a good earner for the owner. I actually think the owner probably got complacent -because no one ever followed through and took legal action.

Which shows how daft they are because it’s not an illegal website at all! It’s not illegal to be on it, use it or read on it. It’s a gossip website akin to Perez Hilton- remember that?!

I do know now though that there was some awful life-shattering stuff on there which I didn’t know about or get involved with at all. I just liked commenting on certain Instagramers who I got my eyes opened to them not being all they seemed. I didn’t know Caroline Hirons wasn’t anything but lovely too and cos she’s got involved I’ve gone to her Tattle and seen she’s not all she seemed as well so it’s so disappointing and eye opening at the same time how these people who influence us online only want things one way…..

I don't know if they actually ended up suing her - she was just found out about but she was essentially blaming them repeatedly for the death of their daughter and I think continued to do so after being told not to.

I just don't see how they're going to out every single user. It wouldnt be possible, practical or even legal?

I think it's important to remember this case is 2 years old and, apparently, Tattle was almost taken down in 2023 but didn't end up being.

Like I keep saying, influencers would have all of their dirty laundry aired and I can't imagine the big ones would want that. Imagine trying to go after anonymous people on the internet and it coming out that you've actually set your followers on people and harassed their places of work. It wouldn't go down well. Plus all those who have done so since the successful court case surely can't realistically have pending cases because they would have to be squeaky clean during that time right? I imagine solicitors would know about the success in 2023.

Defamation is something that is UNTRUE, though. If someone posted all over tattle that I was fat, that can’t be defamation because it’s their opinion. It is subjective. Most of what is being discussed here is being confused as defamatory comments when they aren’t. The case that went to court would have had to be damaging and UNTRUE which can be proven in court - ie, “they don’t pay their taxes” (my random example, I haven’t looked at the detail of this case). This can be proved to be false by the people suing when they show their tax statements. It’s very black and white.

The influencers who think they are owed money (typical of these lot) because people are on tattle discussing how they behave, look, act etc are wrong because that’s all opinion and free speech (protected characteristics aside) and, thankfully, that is allowed in this country despite what they want! If they are UK influencers bleating on about “class action lawsuits”, they are adding to my (not defamatory) comments that they are not very bright, as that is an American term and does not work the same way in the U.K.

Sorry to keep popping up here but honestly, the idea these influencers are so gleeful about all of this to shut down anything being said about them is laughable. I’m very against influencers for a multitude of reasons, and i hope people aren’t threatened into not discussing the phenomenon because of false information.

No because no judge would do that without looking at it first in its entirety and that would show it isn’t. Anyway is there even a legal definition of a “troll website”?! Does such a thing exist? Cos the Daily Mail would be one lol or X now for defs!
What these influencers don’t realise is to go to court about defamation (and you need a sound legal grounding for this) is long and costly and very personal for them. If the influencer I named a “shit mum” on tattle comes at me for this being defamatory, for example, she would have to prove this isn’t something a person could reasonably hold as an opinion based on the stuff SHE has shared on Instagram. Like the previous poster shared an example of, defamation is a statement presented as a FACT which can be proved as untrue.

Yes and they only have one year from the initial publication of the comment. So in the case of this, the comments must have been made in 2021.

Defamation cases like to be settled out of court from what I've read. And i believe if they want paying for it, they have to be able to prove loss of earnings/damages.

If everything that is being discussed is based on what they have shared, then does that even count as defamation?

The obvious ones would surely be claiming they haven't paid taxes or something like that.

I have heard the Radford family want to take Tattle to court but don't know how they can? How can they when what I've read on it is true IE her age and his age when she had her first child. It's facts🤷‍♂️

I imagine all the influencers are probably hoping they can sue but they would surely have to be whiter than white to do that successfully. E.g. if there were any screenshots of them doxxing people, are they likely to get in trouble if they bring Tattle to court?

All this is showing me the more I think about it is how toxic social media can be. On both sides. All influencers have done since Friday is direct hate at the owner of Tattle.

I think it's time I remove/limit my own social media accounts and stop living through a screen. This is a great reminder of this 🤞

Agreed.
Donna S herself said she hopes this marks a turning point and she was right, for me anyways. I’ve come off tattle and asked for my account to be deleted. Whilst I never got involved in the really awful stuff, on reflection is gossiping about people I don’t even know a good use of my time? No.
But yes it has been very telling how they’ve all reacted to him being outed and they’ve displayed- although nowhere near as rotten- the same gossipy pile on behaviour they hated from Tattle! Interesting behaviour indeed!

To be honest I think that's what a lot of them are pushing for. More people to just take themselves off and leave the site.

Did Tattle confirm that they will delete your personal data? I know it's only emails and birth dates but they should ideally delete that now it's been requested.

I’ve emailed them reminding them of GDPR and my right to erasure. Will continue emailing them several times a day until they do! someone told me you need to spam them to get a response!

That website is horrible and has been the cause of many mental health issues for the people it denigrates. I think originally it was supposed to be for celebrity gossip ie who is wearing what etc but it has now become a forum for bullying. A lady I know was mentioned on there and the things that were said about her were just awful. She spoke out about it and it actually made the situation worse. the couple who won the court case deserve the cash. There is talk of all people who are members being exposed, ie email addresses etc and unfortunately I just dont think that's going to happen. Its a dangerous website in my opinion and used by people to act out their nastiness.

Tattle are not going to come after people for making bitchy comments online - the person the courts are after just now is the person who allowed those defamatory comments to stay up. The owner.

I came across tattle life when YouTuber Ruby Frank was being exposed for the abuse she was showing towards her kids - shockingly her followers were completely taken in by her and would praise her parenting. Anyway she’s doing time now after being exposed so the site is not all bad.

It says on there if you want your data removing then to delete your account. If he holds onto it isn't that a data breach?

Exactly.
because the first thing anyone does in a case of defamation is ask you to remove the comments or face legal action. That’s what he was asked by the Sands.
bet he wishes he had just done it now!

But not illegal

The thing about this - I had an account, never posted on the gossip threads or even read them (I don’t follow many influencers tbh), but I loved the pregnancy and new baby threads. They were so supportive and helpful, and that was the extent of my tattle usage. No different to being on here in that respect. Should I be outed and associated by default despite never having written one disparaging comment about anyone famous ever?

I only stumbled on the site because one of the only influencers I follow posted about it, so I went to see, got sidetracked by the advice threads which were so supportive I stayed!

If users' names or personal identities are exposed, it could undermine trust in forums entirely, including this one potentially leading to their decline. The Tiktokers screaming for anonymity to be completely removed from social media obviously haven’t thought about that having a massive impact on their views and income as there would likely be a noticeable decline in usage.