A ‘Toxic’ Website of Trolls
Nestled within a corner of the internet, a new website was created in 2017. It was to be similar to a celebrity forum, but with one key difference. Rather than being a space for fans to celebrate those within the public eye, it was a space to attack them. Tattle Life would expressly target those who its posters had decreed had “choose[n] to monetise their personal life as a business and release it into the public domain”.
In the years since, the website has been used by those wishing to vent, mock and track influencers, celebrities and sometimes simply social media users who had managed to garner a few thousand followers. Its content is reported as being frequently toxic and deeply personal, at times verging on the obsessive.
However, the website was unquestionably popular. The Daily Mail has reported that there were 11.5 million visits to the site last month alone. That popularity meant it was also lucrative for its owners. As Mr Justice McAlinden said in his 2023 judgment where he found against Tattle Life,
“the people facilitating this [website] are making money out of it…they are protecting their income streams by protecting the identity of the individual posters [. It is] clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit. It is the… calculated exercise of extreme cynicism — which in reality constitutes behaviour solely aimed at making profit out of people’s misery.”
Two of the website’s victims have just hit a significant milestone in their fight against Tattle Life’s owners. It shows both the challenges and the opportunities in pursuing justice against anonymous trolls, and those who enable them.
The Sands’ Case
The Sands, a married couple of entrepreneurs living in County Antrim, discovered that an extensive thread existed on Tattle Life, focusing entirely on them.
Neil Sands wrote to the website’s operators in February 2021, asking that the thread be removed. This was not actioned. Equally, the Sands’ pre-action correspondence to Tattle Life – sent on 12 May 2023 – went ignored. Proceedings were then issued by the Sands against Tattle Life in June 2023, with reporting restrictions granted over the proceedings that same month.
Within three months, the Sands obtained default judgment following the defendants’ failure to engage in the proceedings; an injunction was granted to prevent further publication of the defamatory thread and the defendants were also ordered to disclose all data about 12 Tattle Life anonymous posters.
An assessment of damages hearing was held on 1 December 2023. As at the date of this article, the subsequent judgment by Mr Justice McAlinden sitting in the High Court of Northern Ireland, is the only judgment currently available. In it, the Sands were awarded £150,000 each in damages and their costs on an indemnity basis. As the Judge explained,
“A day of reckoning will come for those behind Tattle Life and for those individuals who posted on Tattle Life. To hasten that day of reckoning, it is appropriate that the court makes an award of damages to each plaintiff in this case”.
The Court did not stop there. In subsequent hearings, the court made various orders in favour of the Sands, including Norwich Pharmacal orders, freezing orders and Bankers Trust Third Party orders.
It appears that this gave the Sands the tools they needed to use their lawyers and investigators to hunt down and piece together exactly who was behind the site, and where their assets were held.
Under increasing pressure, it is reported that Sebastian Bond’s legal team confirmed that he is a founder of Tattle Life on 10 June 2025.
On 13 June 2025, the High Court of Northern Ireland granted an application to lift reporting restrictions over the case. It is reported that the Sands informed the Court that the actual publishers had finally been identified with sufficient confidence and that they sought an order to name them.
The case continues, as the Sands now seek to enforce their judgment against the newly identified publishers of Tattle Life. In interviews, they have confirmed their intention to also bring legal action directly against the Tattle Life posters.
Unmasking Anonymous ‘Trolls’
As the Sands case demonstrates, anonymity will not necessarily protect those harassing, defaming and misusing the private information of others. There are a number of legal mechanisms available in England & Wales to break through a defendant’s anonymity:
(i) Norwich Pharmacal Orders
Norwich Pharmacal orders (‘NPO’) are an effective way of unmasking ‘persons unknown’. NPOs are brought against an innocent third party who is ‘mixed up’ in the wrongdoing and knows, may know or may have evidence to assist in identifying the wrongdoer. NPOs require that third party to reveal or assist in revealing the wrongdoer’s identity.
To obtain an NPO, an applicant must satisfy a number of criteria including:
- that there is a good arguable case that there has been wrongdoing;
- that the order is necessary in order to take action against the wrongdoer (and there is no other means of obtaining the same outcome);
- that the respondent has been ‘mixed up’ in the wrongdoing;
- that the respondent is likely to hold relevant information, and
- that granting the order is necessary and proportionate.
For instance, an NPO could be used to force a website operator to reveal the identity of an anonymous poster, who had been subjecting the claimant to harassment, defamation and misuse of their private information. It is exactly those kinds of applications which the newly identified operators of Tattle Life could now face, and which in turn could see the identities of Tattle Life’s most abusive posters revealed.
(ii) Spartacus Orders
Other options include so-called ‘Spartacus Orders’, where the court makes an order against a ‘person unknown’ defendant and demands that they reveal their own identity and frequently their address for service.
The English High Court, in the case of NPV v QEL & ZED [2018] EWHC 703 (QB), made exactly such an order, as part of a wider injunction against the defendants. Mr Justice Nicklin helpfully outlined his reasoning: requiring the second defendant to “disclose his identity and address for service…[is] typical in cases like this where there is a justified concern about further dissemination of the private information and where the threat to publish is being made by someone who is hiding behind anonymity”.
While there are limitations to how effective these self-identification orders are at breaking through anonymity, they can prove very useful later down the line. If the defendant’s identity is later revealed by other means, contempt of court proceedings can be immediately brought against the defendant, for failing to comply with the Spartacus Order.
(iii) Notice of Complaint
A Notice of Complaint, under section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013, can be used to notify a website publisher or operator about defamatory content. While it is a complete defence for a website publisher/operator that did not post the defamatory content, the defence is defeated if the person who posted cannot be identified, and the publisher or operator failed to respond to the notice of complaint and take action in respect of the defamatory content, meaning claims can be pursued.
While the operator defence appears to be specific to the law in this jurisdiction, it appears from reporting that the Sands did instigate a similar process to a notice of complaint. They initially contacted Tattle Life and notified them of the thread of posts they wished to be removed, but in the absence of any removal of the threads, proceedings were initiated against the website operator.
A Legal Milestone
As Persephone Bridgman Baker explained to the Daily Mail, the unmasking of Sebastian Bond is a legal milestone for the content creators, influencers and celebrities who have been persistently harassed on the toxic website Tattle Life. Bond has now admitted his role as the website founder, and his identification may lead to claims by others named on the site. There is the potential for claims in defamation, misuse of private information and harassment against individuals who have posted on the website, as well as against Bond as the operator if certain additional requirements are met. These claims could result in damages awards.
Online bullying has real consequences and individuals can be identified: this should be a salutary lesson for trolls that think that they can hide behind anonymity online.
If you have been affected by content on similar platforms, been harassed or have concerns about your reputation or privacy online, our team of media law experts can help.
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