Tattle Life Has Been Exposed – So What Now?

Last week an Irish couple Neil and Donna Sands were awarded £300,00 in damages after hateful and abusive comments were shared about them on the website Tattle Life.

The High Court Justice of Northern Ireland also granted an application to lift reporting restrictions which protected the identity of the publisher Tattle Life. The publisher can now be identified as Sebastian Bond.

BBC news reports that Bond set up Tattle Life in 2018, so users could write “commentary and critiques” about content creators. However, Tattle Life claimed that they had a “zero-tolerance policy” for any “abusive, hateful or harmful” content, and would remove any posts that broke those rules by an online team that moderated the website.

Last week’s ruling not only confirmed the identity of Bond, but according to the judge, will trigger “a day of reckoning” for all the individuals who published content on the site.

And while the future of the website remains unclear, one thing is for certain – influencers are wasting no time congratulating the couple, and sharing their own experiences with hateful and hurtful comments on the forum.

@abigailparkinson_ Please read the judges quote at the end of the video 👏 *this is not my case & I have nothing to do with this – huge congratulations and THANK YOU to Donna & her husband & the images I’ve shared belong to @Goss.ie #tattle ♬ original sound – Abigail Parkinson

Irish actress and influencer Abigail Parkinson took to TikTok to show her appreciation to Neil and Donna. She said: “Well done to Donna and her husband that did this, on behalf of me and everyone else that has been relentlessly bullied and targeted and just been a victim to this disgusting horrific website”.

Northern Irish content creator India Sasha also posted a video on social media saying, “It is the most pathetic, disgusting website to ever exist”. She added, “If you’re anybody that took any part in any of that, I strongly suggest that you stop posting on it and stop being a part of that toxic cycle of bringing people down in this country”.

@indiasasha What a DAY #tattlelife #fyp @weebelfastchick @Tiana mYa🩵 ♬ original sound – Indiasasha

According to the couple, “thousands of people” have since been in touch to discuss their own harassment and experiences on the site.

Neil told RTE’s Morning Ireland: “It’s not an easy thing to speak about. And I can tell you that we’re not alone in this phenomenon of online harassment. Thousands of people have reached out to us in the last 48 hours who have explained their stories.”

The ruling will likely be used as an example for similar cases in the future, as well as tying in with recent online anti-bullying laws to tackle online abuse. In 2020, Ireland introduced the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act, which is also known as ‘Coco’s Law’.

The law has criminalised the spreading of non consensual intimate images online. Committing the offence can lead to a jail term of up to 7 years. A review at the end of September 2024 found that almost 100 cases were prosecuted by the DPP.

A bill was also proposed recently to make catfishing a criminal offence, penalising anyone who impersonates another person online. As of the end of May, the bill was in the fourth stage before Seanad Éireann, also known as the Report Stage. 

Justice for those harassed online has historically been slow, but the more cases prosecuted and the more perpetrators exposed, the fewer opportunities there will be for hate on the internet.

Words by Nikita Hall