June 16, 2025 • 28 mins
Tattle Life has finally had its day in court, with the founder behind the snark website finally unmasked. For over seven years, Sebastian Bond has hidden behind a veil of anonymity, but that was ripped away on Saturday, when an Irish couple successfully sued Tattle Life for defamation and harassment. Now that the owner’s identity has been exposed, it’s opened the floodgates to further lawsuits.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Kate Torber and coming up on today's show, Tattle Lives,
founder has been unmasked during a landmark defamation case, and
Indy Clinton's quest to end cyberbullying. But first, Amy, you
are back. You've ented maternity leave a lot earlier than
(00:23):
I did. Yeah, it's been nine weeks, but it's actually
felt like quite a while, and I am so up
to date on all of the influencer news and drama
because all I have been doing is watching vlog after
log while I've been feeding Harry. I remember those good
old days. Enjoy it while a last because I'm on
no screen time with Jack at the moment and I'm
wishing i could be watching YouTube. Well, it's getting to
the point where I'm scraping the barrel because I was
(00:44):
watching content from Molly May from about four years ago,
and I thought, geez, my favorite influencers need to release
some more videos. I started watching Molly May and Tommy
Fury's Love Island series when I was breastfeeding. I was like,
I'm just going to take it back to the start. Well,
there is a new Love Island coming out. It's playing
in the UK moment, so I will be watching that
as well. Tattle Life has finally had its day in court,
(01:06):
with the founder behind the snark website finally unmasked. For
over seven years, Sebastian Bond has hidden behind a veil
of anonymity, but that was ripped away on Saturday when
an Irish couple successfully sued tattle Life the defamation and harassment.
Now that the owner's identity has been exposed, it's opened
the floodgates to further lawsuits. Now this is a landmark
(01:28):
defamation case. It is set to shake things up in
the influencer world. We have spoken a lot about tattle
Life on this podcast, but Kate, for those listeners who
aren't familiar with the side, can you bring us up
to speed.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Tattle Life is an online gossip forum that claims to
hold influences to account. It features countless threads dedicated to
discussing individual influences, and since its launch in twenty eighteen,
the website has reportedly attracted millions of views every month
and generated millions of dollars in advertising revenue. It's actually
(02:00):
become one of Australia's most visited websites, and the website
builds itself as a place for commentary and critique of
people that choose to monetize their personal life as a
business and release it in the public domain. Title Life
also claims that its purpose is to protect free speech
and protect the public's mental health. Now, back in twenty nineteen,
(02:22):
the owner of the site wrote, It's an important part
of a healthy, free and fair society for members of
the public to have an opinion on those in a
position of power and influence. That is why tattle exists.
We allow people to express their views on businesses away
from an influencer's feed, on a site where they would
have to go out of their way to read. This
is not trolling. When somebody has to actually point out
(02:45):
this is not trolling, you always know there is going
to be trolling involved. It's like when people say no
offense and then say something highly offensive. Exactly right, And
despite claiming to have a zero tolerance policy towards abusive,
hateful and harmful content, tattle Life has become renowned, as
you said, Amy, for just that. It's been touted as
the most toxic corner of the Internet, with many influencers
(03:07):
complaining that they've been bullied to fame or doxed on
the website. And what makes Tuttle particularly dangerous is that
users are completely anonymous. There has been so much talk
recently about whether people should be able to post their
anonymous thoughts on the Internet. I mean, my view is,
if you have to say something under the veil of anonymity,
maybe you shouldn't be saying it, because you should be
(03:28):
able to put your face and name to whatever you're
going to say about someone or something. And we had
this discussion recently because in our group, a lot of
people started leaving anonymous comments and we found that the
tone totally changed, because when people can post something anonymously,
it often turns toxic very quickly. Yeah, and it got
to the point where there were some threats where nearly
(03:49):
every single comment was anonymously posted. So we turned that
anonymous posting feature off and it has been game changing. Yeah,
I'm just glad that Facebook actually gave us the ability
to turn that feature off.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
There have been countless influencers that have called for Tattle
to be banned, and there's been a lot of unsuccessful
attempts until now. So two years ago an Irish couple
called Neil and Donna Sans took things into their own hands,
funding a legal battle against the website. So Donna is
thirty four and she has a fashion business, while Neil
(04:20):
is a forty two year old technology entrepreneur. Now I
wasn't familiar with them, but I assume that they must
be pretty well known influencers in Ireland, seeing as they
had a forty five page thread on the website. It
turns out though they are micro influencers. So at the
time of recording, Donna has thirty thousand Instagram followers, which
is likely to have been bolstered by the recent news.
(04:42):
As for her husband, Neil, he's only got five thousand followers.
And that's the thing about Tattle, you actually don't have
to be a big fish. Some of the threads about
micro influencers are just as extensive as the big influencers. Well,
that kind of goes against their whole motto, isn't it
on their website that you know, you have to be
earning a huge living to be able to be talked
about on the website. Exactly now, in February twenty twenty one,
(05:06):
Donna and Neil Sanm's asked haddle life to remove a
forty five page defamatory thread about them. Now, the website
just ignored their request and they allowed the comments to
remain live on their website until May twenty twenty five. Now,
the SAMs launched legal action against haddle life in June
twenty twenty three, and after a lengthy two year battle
that they self funded, they were awarded three hundred thousand
(05:29):
pounds as well as their legal costs. Wow, because you
would assume, as you said, that it was a big
name influencer that would have had the money to be
able to launch a legal case against addle life, not
some micro influencers. I mean, I got the vibe from
the Instagram account that they're quite wealthy. They had their
wedding in late Como. That says a lot. But at
the end of the day, this is more than about money.
(05:50):
This is about standing up for content creators and people
that put themselves online and saying, hey, this is not okay. Well,
I think a lot of people on Tattle would be
shaking in their boots because during the proceedings, Justice McK
adlin said a day of reckoning will come for those
behind tattle Life and for those individuals who posted on
tattle Life.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
The judge deemed that the website had been set up
to deliberately inflict hurt and harm on others by allowing
the anonymous trashing of people's reputation. Justin mcadlin called the
website's action a calculated exercise of extreme cynicism. He went
on to say, this is clearly a case of peddling
untruths for profit. I mean that is the key. As
(06:31):
you said, this guy has been making so much money
having other people trash the reputations of influencers and content
creators and also just micro influencers who owned businesses. Yeah,
this guy is making serious bank at the expense of
a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
During the two year court case, the identity of the
owner of tatle Life was suppressed. In fact, it's been
a secret for more than seven years, with the owner
posting under the pseudonym Helen McDougal. That all changed, though,
when Donna and Nil's application to lift the reporting restrictions
was approved and their real name was made public on Saturday.
(07:09):
As we're revealed at the start of this segment. The
owner of Tatle Life is Sebastian Bond, if you can
believe it. He is a forty three year old food
influencer who runs a vegan cooking instagram called Nest and Growth.
I'm assuming there's no Tato Life thread on him and
his content. Funny about that there isn't actually now, he
is better known under the alias Bastian Dowwood and has
(07:31):
attracted one hundred and thirty five thousand Instagram followers through
his wholesome online persona now. According to the Nest and
Glow website, Bond is a former office worker who quit
long days in London to move to the countryside and
share natural recipes and lifestyle instead of patrol website on
the side. Yeah, I mean he's making bank off it.
So the funniest thing was when I heard this, I
(07:52):
was like, this is the same as when Dan Humphries
was unveiled as Gossip Girl. I know, it's just so
ironic that it's a make and also that he's an influencer.
I mean, this is the same man who wrote on
Tattle that influencer marketing was insidious and that influencers prey
on the parasocial relationship that they have with their audience,
to quote, houldwink their followers into getting more money. Did
(08:14):
you have a look at his page, because I of
course went straight to there when I saw the news,
and it was pretty uninspiring. He hasn't posted since twenty twenty.
They were sort of ordinary photos of vegan food. Yeah,
he'd been posting since twenty sixteen, but as he said,
he stopped posting in twenty twenty, which is kind of
odd because that's when everyone kind of started posting about food.
I was wondering if maybe he bought the followers, because again,
(08:37):
the content wasn't that crash hot. It was hard to tell, though,
because I went into the comment section and it was
literally every influencer and their dog abusing him, which I loved.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Well.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I wonder if he stopped creating content in twenty twenty,
because that's when Tattle would have exploded in popularity. We know,
when everyone was locked down in their houses, that's when
a lot of people would have turned to websites like tatte.
So perhaps he stopped because he was making more and
more money and he didn't need to be working as
an influencer on the side. Perhaps he was scared that
he might get found out. I mean, it's pretty hypocritical
(09:10):
to slam influencers and then b one yourself. In terms
of him pretending to be a woman, it's so messed
up to think it's this man pretending to be a
woman and encouraging other women to tear women down well,
making so much money off it. It's bullshit and a
lot of men would probably look at Tattle and go, oh,
that's just a whole load of women having a bitch
about other women. The irony that it's a man that's
(09:32):
all behind it. Yeah, I mean, as we touched on,
it's reported that the avid revenue he was earning was
around a million dollars a year, and that was in
twenty twenty one, so I'm guessing it's gone up by then.
And that fact alone completely contradicts Tattle Life's claim that
it operates solely for this sake of public discourse. What
I find really fascinating is more details are coming out
about this investigation that has unmasked Sebastian Bond. So the
(09:56):
couple's legal team have said that this was a global
in investigation, and it turns out that Bond used his
two businesses to try and conceal his identity. So one
is a UK registered company called Yuzu Zest, while the
other is registered in Hong Kong and it's called coum
quat Tree Limited. Interestingly, tattle Life claims to be operated
(10:17):
by a company called Lime Goss, which does really fit
with the whole citrus theme. It is not going on.
We should have known he was a vegan blogger. There
were so many clues I know, and the SAMs legal
team have done an excellent job because they had to
use a mix of legal innovation and digital evidence to
track down Bond and his assets, including money transferred around
(10:39):
the world. According to the legal team, it was a
very sophisticated effort to avoid scrutiny and it appears the
writing was on the wall for Sebastian six months ago.
So back in January, tattle Life shopped its users by
announcing it was closing due to threats. The website went
down for several hours and returned operating under a new name,
(11:00):
eight Cafe, an interesting name. A lot of people said
it sounded like the Hate Cafe, which would have been
bang on. It could have called it like sour pusses
or something stuck with the citrus theme now. The owner
then posted a farewell message, writing, Unfortunately, recent threats directed
at members of one of our families have left us
with no choice but to shut down the site. It's
simply unfair for them to be impacted by something they
(11:23):
have zero involvement in. Now, that was pretty ironic. The
Sebastian Bond tried to take this moral high ground. You know,
when his family was dragged into it, it was terrible.
How about when every other influencers family who has nothing
to do with the online world's being dragged into it?
Exactly very hypocritical. Now, Unfortunately, that shutdown was short lived,
because just twenty four hours later, a Sebastian Bond changed
(11:45):
his mind. Under a pseudonym Helen McDougal, he wrote, after
further discussions, yet late into the night for some and
all afternoon for others, we have decided to deal with
the threats with legal action. As you will appreciate, we
won't be discussing the situation as it concerned family members
with no connection to Tattle. All matters are with our
legal team. He finished up by writing, once again, we
(12:07):
apologize for the stress of the last couple of days
and hope to see you all back on your favorite threads.
Please post on topic on the threads and ignore this
whole situation while I was dealt with as not to
jeopardize it. Well, when all this news came out, I
went straight to Tattle to see if there was a
discussion on Sebastian Bond. Nothing. There was no one discussing it. Oh,
(12:27):
so that twenty four to seven moderator that they claimed
to have is working for him. Yeah, exactly, well, inimpeccable timing.
On Friday night, Indy Clinton announced on her Instagram that
she knew the identities of the anonymous trolls who had
been bullying her for years. So a few weeks ago,
Indy revealed she'd hired a private investigator to find out
(12:47):
who was behind the constant harassment. And so on Friday night,
she appeared on camera in a hoodie and black sunglasses
with the glass of wine and she was ready to
spill the tea and it didn't disappoint Yeah. It turns
out that her private investigator had put together a sixty
four page report which unmasked the trolls. Now Indy was
(13:09):
unable to name and shame the trolls due to it
being an ongoing case, but she did let a few
interesting titbits slip. So she dropped that a lot of
her trolls are from Melbourne, with many of them mothers.
Did this surprise you, Amy, It didn't surprise me at all.
I think anytime you see a troll on TikTok or Instagram,
often when you click on their profile you'll see it's
(13:30):
either a motivational quote about loving everybody and being kind
and then it says like mama of three. So it
wasn't surprising. And also because Indy is a mummy vlogger,
she would attract a lot of other mums. But I mean,
it obviously shocks you a bit to find out that
somebody who is looking after children. There's often a perception
around what a mother is like they're very caring and kind.
(13:52):
To find out that it's actually mothers who have been
trolling Indy for years, it is quite sad. Really, it's sad,
and it does make me reflect and think, well, is
this a sign of women just having way too much
pressure on themsel I was not trying to make excuses
for these trolls because their behavior is absolutely awful, but
the fact that it is this particular demographic of women
(14:12):
who are probably trying to look after kids, trying to
have a job, and their outlet is trolling people online,
and it's just very interesting from a psychological perspective. As
Indy pointed out, she's like, this is why the cycle continues,
because you've got these mums who are sitting online trolling
other women. They're teaching their kids then to be bullies
in school. And that's one of the reasons why Indy
(14:35):
has gone to the lengths of hiring a private investigator
because she really wants this cycle to stop. And she
made it very clear that she's quite familiar with who
her biggest trolls are, so much so that she said
she knows what hospital one gave birth in, alongside their
abn and gynecologist name, and as for another, she said
that she could relate to them about regretting the tattoo
(14:56):
they got when they were eighteen, and that she knew
they went through birth out in twenty twenty four. She
also revealed that she's been engaging with some of her
trolls platforms just to let them know that she knows
who they are, and it was also to give them
an opportunity to apologize. Yeah, because she followed some of
them and then liked others posts on Instagram and TikTok.
(15:17):
Can you imagine your heart dropping? You would be like,
how the hell does she know who I am? I
went to India's following list because I thought, oh, I
wonder if it will pop up who she's recently followed,
maybe some insight into who the trolls are. But I
actually couldn't find anyone. I mean, I love this tact
because we did something similar. Not that we get trolled
(15:37):
at all on the level that Indy Clinton does, but
we unfortunately do have a thread in Tuttle Life dedicated
to this podcast strangely, and there is someone that posts
a lot in there. They seem to have a real
interest in us, and we wait out who they were,
so we just blocked them in all of our accounts,
and I think they were a little bit confused. And
the funniest thing was they had been messaging us all
(15:57):
of these complimentary things and saying how well we'd be
doing on the podcast. So it's just bizarre behavior. Yeah,
and that's the strange thing. Often people who troll influencers
at some point used to be really big fans, so
then they know a lot about them and something happens
and they completely switch. Now, as for Indy's biggest troll,
this is how she addressed.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Them after Melbourne. I mean Victoria, who was there? Oh
that's right? Wa? Hello Wa. My number one antagonist is
from Wa. How you doing. I probably haven't reached out
to you this week because I'm taking to court. I'm
just being honest.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Now since the revelation, influencer Watchdog account dutch Minty has
shut down. Now, dutch Minty was very vocal in calling
Indi out about sharing her children online. It's got a
lot of people thinking that dutch Minty or whoever is
behind that account, is this super fan that Indy is sewing. Well,
you would be in damage control, wouldn't you. I mean,
(16:55):
this is a troll's biggest fear being unmasked. And as
we said, it's often people that you would never expect.
I mean, some of these women who were about to
receive legal threats, they could hold really important jobs. They
could be teachers, they could lose their job, but that
they could be in healthcare. You just don't know who
these people are. Yeah. Now, Indie presented this in a
really joking manner and that was to gain traction. But
(17:17):
as clear, this is not a joke to her at all.
She's spoke in length about wanting to use her platform
for good and to stop cyberbulling. She's also put a
lot of her own money into this, and on Sunday
she revealed just how much cyberbulling had affected her. This
is what she said.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
This has gone further than just naming and shaming.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
This is.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
An epidemic that needs to stop because lives are being taken.
And for me, right, let me just put this very clear.
For me, a few months ago, what I have endured
it was life or death.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
This made me so sad because we had Indy Clinton
on our show back in December, and she was an
absolute ray of sunshine. She was so generous with her time,
so down to earth, so easy to talk to. And
I mean, we've spoken about Indy Clinton. I feel like
we try and be very unbiased, So if we have
someone on the show, we're still going to talk about
them if they do something controversial in quoteation marks. So
(18:14):
we've been pretty open with our reporting on her and
she was so gracious to come on our show. We
had a laugh. She was absolutely beautiful personally. She spoke
a lot about the trolling as well, that she'd endure it.
If anyone wants to go back and listen to it's
one of our Christmas episodes. And it obviously does take
a toll on people. I think often people forget that
influencers are real people and they see their lives online
(18:35):
and they don't think that these kind of comments get
to them, but they obviously do.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Well.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I think the worst thing about tattle Life is you
often see people direct in the comment at the influencers.
So in a lot of threads they go, oh so
and so like, for instance, Indy, we know you read this,
you should do this. Like It's like these people get
a kick out of knowing that the influencers are looking
at it, and they're even harsher. Whereas a rich Sebastian
(19:01):
Bond claimed that this was a place where people could
talk freely about influencers without them seeing it, It's like, well,
it's just human nature to want to see what people
are saying about you, and it's really hard to not
look at threats. Yeah, and I would put it to
listeners out there. If there was a page where people
were talking about you, would you not be intrigued to
read it? And I think everyone would go and click
(19:21):
on it. Now Australian influencers are excited about this revelation.
There's been a lot of talk online about it. M
Davies shared her thoughts to Instagram, writing the idea that
we might soon have the means to identify those who
are projecting their own insecurities as online hate is a
huge and long overdue shift in this industry. It's fucking
(19:41):
refreshing and hopeful to witness slash see online right now.
What's even more disturbing is that so many of these
people are parents, laugh out loud role models supposedly, Hey,
it's vile. I honestly can't comprehend how they find the
time or the desire to spread that kind of toxicity
while raising children. Karma has a way of circling back.
(20:02):
Always grateful for people like Indy Clinton, Nil San's and
Donna San's doing the work to figure it out. We
shouldn't be numb to receiving this bullshit day in and
day out, just because we choose to share more of
our lives online doesn't mean we deserve to be relentlessly
criticized and bullies. Openness is not an invitation for abuse.
Think about it anyway, Their time will come. I really
(20:24):
enjoyed hearing m Davy's thoughts on this because there has
been this blanket rule that if you put yourself out
there online, then you have to be okay with people
discussing you. And obviously we have this podcast where we
talk about influencer culture and things that influencers do, but
we really try to talk about the action rather than
the person, and we put our face and name to it,
(20:45):
so we're okay with the things that we say, and
we can have open discourse if someone like an influencer
isn't happy with it. But when you're posting anonymously, there's
no discourse there. You don't know who it's coming from.
You can't hold that person to account, and you if
you say the most disgusting things that you would never
ever say to a person. And I don't think that
that is a fair trade off for being an influencer,
(21:07):
particularly when you consider how saturated the influencer market is
at the moment. There are so many more influences than
they were, so nowadays an influencer, some influencers earn you know,
not even minimum wage. Some influencers are just doing it
for fun and they are copying so much ridicule that
they don't want to put themselves out there anymore. For example,
(21:29):
there's I know, there's a TikToker who has a million
followers in Australia and you might look at her and go,
oh my god, a million followers. She must be making
a packet, but she's not because Australia doesn't have the
TikTok creator fund. So I agree, it seems very unfair
when you're not even making like a lot of these
people are not making truckloads of money that you think
that they might be making because you think, well, maybe
(21:51):
that outweighs the good outweighs are bad. This person is
making a living off it, But it's often that they're
earning minimum wage and then being absolutely horn to shreds. Yeah,
because a lot of the threads about micro influencers are
just as vicious as we were saying earlier. And I mean,
even if an influencer was earning megabucks, it doesn't give
people the right to absolutely defame docs and harass them
(22:13):
and bully them until their mental health suffers from it.
But I suppose the only thing we have to compare
it to is how people treat celebrities. And people often say, oh,
we can talk about them and say whatever we want
because you know, they're living this lifestyle that you could
only dream of. But influencers are not. All influencers are
living the life. We've had a discussion about Tattle a
lot on this podcast and over the past couple of years,
(22:34):
and there's also been lots of chat in our group,
and I do want to put it out there. There
are some people who do use tattle in the correct way,
where they will actually hold an influencer to account. I mean,
there have been cases, for example, Ruby Frankie where a
lot of followers of her were concerned about her actions
and it turned out to be that she was doing
the wrong thing. She's been jailed. So there are instances
(22:54):
where Tattle Life has done good. Unfortunately, there are just
more people who are using the website as a platform
for hate speech as opposed to those people who are
actually using it correctly as a call out platform. Well,
I mean, and that might have been its initial intention,
but it's just become a cesspool of hate and an
echo chamber for everyone who doesn't like someone to get
(23:15):
together and literally try and destroy their life now. Leah
Atsinas has been vocal about her distaste towards tatle Life before.
When tatle Life looked like it was shutting down back
in January, she posted in our Facebook community saying that
the site gave her postnatal depression and she actually sadly
got to the point where she thought her daughter was
(23:36):
better off without her. Now, once the news broke, she
wrote on her Instagram story, anonymous bullies deserve to be
unmasked because of how fucking embarrassing it is to be one.
Imagine your family and friends finding out you bully people
online wild. I'm so glad this is happening. The damage
to this site and others did to me when I
was my most rule nearly broke me. What a fucking loser.
(23:56):
Lily Brown has also spoken up about Tutelelife, despite actually
say she didn't know about the website, which I found surprising.
She wrote, surely all us creators all band together and
take down the rest of the faceless accounts, destroying people's
mental health. It's about fucking time. And she went on
to say that over the last twelve months, she's felt
herself really pull back from sharing about her life because
(24:17):
of these faceless super fans who she says say the
most horrific things about her. And she said that she
would like to go back to posting more regularly and
not feeling like everything she says or does will get
picked apart by these people. I can see why she
feels that way, because, as you mentioned, there was a
Tattle threat about us, and I think it was really
getting into Sophie's head. I don't go and read that shit,
(24:38):
but I know she was somebody that would go and
have a look and it would make her feel shit.
And it does make you second guess yourself when you
are putting out content because you think, oh god, am
I sharing too much? Is it's going to be ridiculed?
Is it's just fodder for the trolls? So maybe we
are going to see if Tattle does get shut down
a lot better content. I mean, I've heard someath from
Barker talk about it recently. She talks of those golden
(25:01):
years of YouTube when everyone was so supportive, and I
think a lot of influencers don't share the way they
used to share because of this fear. Yeah. I think
in order for that to happen, though, social media platforms
need to get on board because, as in d Clinton said,
they're doing fucking nothing to help this situation. Like, I mean,
it's so easy for people to make up faceless accounts
(25:23):
control people. There needs to be some sort of verification
processes involved so that you can't create faceless accounts. I mean,
this case against hadle life really is a landmark case.
Legal experts believe that this case will set a precedent
for future action against digital defamation, and it's only a
matter of time before more victims come forward and possibly
(25:44):
even create a class action against tatle life, and that
would likely push for regulatory reforms in online speech and
anonymous platforms. And it really is set to open the
floodgates to lawsuits. I think. Well, the Sans couple who
sued tattle Life, they recently shared an Instagram post encouraging
creators and influencers to go and save their tattle threads
(26:05):
before they get deleted, because they are saying, well, one
this site is probably going to go down because as
you said, this has set precedence to go and save
the evidence before it gets deleted. I actually went on
there to start screenshotting ours, and I almost ready to
join the class action. Yeah I am, but I froze
because I again, I haven't looked at our threads since
(26:27):
I think it was March twenty twenty four, and last
time I did, I was heavily pregnant and the absolute
lies and bullshit these people were saying about me. I
relate to everything that Lea Asinas has said M Davies,
and I'm not putting myself on the same platform as
them because I'm fucking shocked that we even have a
Tattle thread where bloody nobody's but it hurts. And I
(26:47):
literally actually couldn't even screenshot it because I'm like, I
don't want to read what these people are saying. It's horrible,
But you know what, I will get someone to do
it for us, just because. But yeah, I'd happily join
that class Actually, imagine how many people that this is
going to run into the multi millions, Like it is
incredible how many people have been defamed. I mean, you
(27:07):
could go and spend one minute on Tattle and see
ten influences be completely and utterly defamed.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Well, now that Sebastian Bond has been on marsially, it's
only a matter of time before the trolls actually on
the website do Because I'm assuming that as a part
of this legal action, Title Life will have to hand
over their database. I know a lot of people sign
up using a fake alias, but surely with IP addresses,
the identities of these people are going to come out now.
(27:37):
A further review of this case is scheduled for the
twenty sixth of June twenty twenty five, where ongoing enforcement
of the damages and injunctions will be evaluated. As for
Sebastian Bond's future, he is facing substantial legal and reputational consequences,
as well as extensive financial orders against him and international
enforcement underway. I'm very excited to see what happens here. Well,
(28:01):
that is where we're going to leave things for today.
What an episode to return to. It was a massive episode.
Sophie will be absolutely crushed that she was a part
of this one, because I think she hates Huddle Life
the most out of all of us. It's a lot
of hate relationship, isn't it. Yeah, this podcast was recorded
on the traditional land of the Ghana people of the
Adelaide Planes. We pay respect to elders past and present
(28:21):
and if you do enjoy the show, we will be
dropping a subscriber only episode on Thursday, and please don't
forget to leave us a review.
Hello, and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Kate Torber and coming up on today's show, Tattle Lives,
founder has been unmasked during a landmark defamation case, and
Indy Clinton's quest to end cyberbullying. But first, Amy, you
are back. You've ented maternity leave a lot earlier than
(00:23):
I did. Yeah, it's been nine weeks, but it's actually
felt like quite a while, and I am so up
to date on all of the influencer news and drama
because all I have been doing is watching vlog after
log while I've been feeding Harry. I remember those good
old days. Enjoy it while a last because I'm on
no screen time with Jack at the moment and I'm
wishing i could be watching YouTube. Well, it's getting to
the point where I'm scraping the barrel because I was
(00:44):
watching content from Molly May from about four years ago,
and I thought, geez, my favorite influencers need to release
some more videos. I started watching Molly May and Tommy
Fury's Love Island series when I was breastfeeding. I was like,
I'm just going to take it back to the start. Well,
there is a new Love Island coming out. It's playing
in the UK moment, so I will be watching that
as well. Tattle Life has finally had its day in court,
(01:06):
with the founder behind the snark website finally unmasked. For
over seven years, Sebastian Bond has hidden behind a veil
of anonymity, but that was ripped away on Saturday when
an Irish couple successfully sued tattle Life the defamation and harassment.
Now that the owner's identity has been exposed, it's opened
the floodgates to further lawsuits. Now this is a landmark
(01:28):
defamation case. It is set to shake things up in
the influencer world. We have spoken a lot about tattle
Life on this podcast, but Kate, for those listeners who
aren't familiar with the side, can you bring us up
to speed.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Tattle Life is an online gossip forum that claims to
hold influences to account. It features countless threads dedicated to
discussing individual influences, and since its launch in twenty eighteen,
the website has reportedly attracted millions of views every month
and generated millions of dollars in advertising revenue. It's actually
(02:00):
become one of Australia's most visited websites, and the website
builds itself as a place for commentary and critique of
people that choose to monetize their personal life as a
business and release it in the public domain. Title Life
also claims that its purpose is to protect free speech
and protect the public's mental health. Now, back in twenty nineteen,
(02:22):
the owner of the site wrote, It's an important part
of a healthy, free and fair society for members of
the public to have an opinion on those in a
position of power and influence. That is why tattle exists.
We allow people to express their views on businesses away
from an influencer's feed, on a site where they would
have to go out of their way to read. This
is not trolling. When somebody has to actually point out
(02:45):
this is not trolling, you always know there is going
to be trolling involved. It's like when people say no
offense and then say something highly offensive. Exactly right, And
despite claiming to have a zero tolerance policy towards abusive,
hateful and harmful content, tattle Life has become renowned, as
you said, Amy, for just that. It's been touted as
the most toxic corner of the Internet, with many influencers
(03:07):
complaining that they've been bullied to fame or doxed on
the website. And what makes Tuttle particularly dangerous is that
users are completely anonymous. There has been so much talk
recently about whether people should be able to post their
anonymous thoughts on the Internet. I mean, my view is,
if you have to say something under the veil of anonymity,
maybe you shouldn't be saying it, because you should be
(03:28):
able to put your face and name to whatever you're
going to say about someone or something. And we had
this discussion recently because in our group, a lot of
people started leaving anonymous comments and we found that the
tone totally changed, because when people can post something anonymously,
it often turns toxic very quickly. Yeah, and it got
to the point where there were some threats where nearly
(03:49):
every single comment was anonymously posted. So we turned that
anonymous posting feature off and it has been game changing. Yeah,
I'm just glad that Facebook actually gave us the ability
to turn that feature off.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
There have been countless influencers that have called for Tattle
to be banned, and there's been a lot of unsuccessful
attempts until now. So two years ago an Irish couple
called Neil and Donna Sans took things into their own hands,
funding a legal battle against the website. So Donna is
thirty four and she has a fashion business, while Neil
(04:20):
is a forty two year old technology entrepreneur. Now I
wasn't familiar with them, but I assume that they must
be pretty well known influencers in Ireland, seeing as they
had a forty five page thread on the website. It
turns out though they are micro influencers. So at the
time of recording, Donna has thirty thousand Instagram followers, which
is likely to have been bolstered by the recent news.
(04:42):
As for her husband, Neil, he's only got five thousand followers.
And that's the thing about Tattle, you actually don't have
to be a big fish. Some of the threads about
micro influencers are just as extensive as the big influencers. Well,
that kind of goes against their whole motto, isn't it
on their website that you know, you have to be
earning a huge living to be able to be talked
about on the website. Exactly now, in February twenty twenty one,
(05:06):
Donna and Neil Sanm's asked haddle life to remove a
forty five page defamatory thread about them. Now, the website
just ignored their request and they allowed the comments to
remain live on their website until May twenty twenty five. Now,
the SAMs launched legal action against haddle life in June
twenty twenty three, and after a lengthy two year battle
that they self funded, they were awarded three hundred thousand
(05:29):
pounds as well as their legal costs. Wow, because you
would assume, as you said, that it was a big
name influencer that would have had the money to be
able to launch a legal case against addle life, not
some micro influencers. I mean, I got the vibe from
the Instagram account that they're quite wealthy. They had their
wedding in late Como. That says a lot. But at
the end of the day, this is more than about money.
(05:50):
This is about standing up for content creators and people
that put themselves online and saying, hey, this is not okay. Well,
I think a lot of people on Tattle would be
shaking in their boots because during the proceedings, Justice McK
adlin said a day of reckoning will come for those
behind tattle Life and for those individuals who posted on
tattle Life.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
The judge deemed that the website had been set up
to deliberately inflict hurt and harm on others by allowing
the anonymous trashing of people's reputation. Justin mcadlin called the
website's action a calculated exercise of extreme cynicism. He went
on to say, this is clearly a case of peddling
untruths for profit. I mean that is the key. As
(06:31):
you said, this guy has been making so much money
having other people trash the reputations of influencers and content
creators and also just micro influencers who owned businesses. Yeah,
this guy is making serious bank at the expense of
a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
During the two year court case, the identity of the
owner of tatle Life was suppressed. In fact, it's been
a secret for more than seven years, with the owner
posting under the pseudonym Helen McDougal. That all changed, though,
when Donna and Nil's application to lift the reporting restrictions
was approved and their real name was made public on Saturday.
(07:09):
As we're revealed at the start of this segment. The
owner of Tatle Life is Sebastian Bond, if you can
believe it. He is a forty three year old food
influencer who runs a vegan cooking instagram called Nest and Growth.
I'm assuming there's no Tato Life thread on him and
his content. Funny about that there isn't actually now, he
is better known under the alias Bastian Dowwood and has
(07:31):
attracted one hundred and thirty five thousand Instagram followers through
his wholesome online persona now. According to the Nest and
Glow website, Bond is a former office worker who quit
long days in London to move to the countryside and
share natural recipes and lifestyle instead of patrol website on
the side. Yeah, I mean he's making bank off it.
So the funniest thing was when I heard this, I
(07:52):
was like, this is the same as when Dan Humphries
was unveiled as Gossip Girl. I know, it's just so
ironic that it's a make and also that he's an influencer.
I mean, this is the same man who wrote on
Tattle that influencer marketing was insidious and that influencers prey
on the parasocial relationship that they have with their audience,
to quote, houldwink their followers into getting more money. Did
(08:14):
you have a look at his page, because I of
course went straight to there when I saw the news,
and it was pretty uninspiring. He hasn't posted since twenty twenty.
They were sort of ordinary photos of vegan food. Yeah,
he'd been posting since twenty sixteen, but as he said,
he stopped posting in twenty twenty, which is kind of
odd because that's when everyone kind of started posting about food.
I was wondering if maybe he bought the followers, because again,
(08:37):
the content wasn't that crash hot. It was hard to tell, though,
because I went into the comment section and it was
literally every influencer and their dog abusing him, which I loved.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Well.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I wonder if he stopped creating content in twenty twenty,
because that's when Tattle would have exploded in popularity. We know,
when everyone was locked down in their houses, that's when
a lot of people would have turned to websites like tatte.
So perhaps he stopped because he was making more and
more money and he didn't need to be working as
an influencer on the side. Perhaps he was scared that
he might get found out. I mean, it's pretty hypocritical
(09:10):
to slam influencers and then b one yourself. In terms
of him pretending to be a woman, it's so messed
up to think it's this man pretending to be a
woman and encouraging other women to tear women down well,
making so much money off it. It's bullshit and a
lot of men would probably look at Tattle and go, oh,
that's just a whole load of women having a bitch
about other women. The irony that it's a man that's
(09:32):
all behind it. Yeah, I mean, as we touched on,
it's reported that the avid revenue he was earning was
around a million dollars a year, and that was in
twenty twenty one, so I'm guessing it's gone up by then.
And that fact alone completely contradicts Tattle Life's claim that
it operates solely for this sake of public discourse. What
I find really fascinating is more details are coming out
about this investigation that has unmasked Sebastian Bond. So the
(09:56):
couple's legal team have said that this was a global
in investigation, and it turns out that Bond used his
two businesses to try and conceal his identity. So one
is a UK registered company called Yuzu Zest, while the
other is registered in Hong Kong and it's called coum
quat Tree Limited. Interestingly, tattle Life claims to be operated
(10:17):
by a company called Lime Goss, which does really fit
with the whole citrus theme. It is not going on.
We should have known he was a vegan blogger. There
were so many clues I know, and the SAMs legal
team have done an excellent job because they had to
use a mix of legal innovation and digital evidence to
track down Bond and his assets, including money transferred around
(10:39):
the world. According to the legal team, it was a
very sophisticated effort to avoid scrutiny and it appears the
writing was on the wall for Sebastian six months ago.
So back in January, tattle Life shopped its users by
announcing it was closing due to threats. The website went
down for several hours and returned operating under a new name,
(11:00):
eight Cafe, an interesting name. A lot of people said
it sounded like the Hate Cafe, which would have been
bang on. It could have called it like sour pusses
or something stuck with the citrus theme now. The owner
then posted a farewell message, writing, Unfortunately, recent threats directed
at members of one of our families have left us
with no choice but to shut down the site. It's
simply unfair for them to be impacted by something they
(11:23):
have zero involvement in. Now, that was pretty ironic. The
Sebastian Bond tried to take this moral high ground. You know,
when his family was dragged into it, it was terrible.
How about when every other influencers family who has nothing
to do with the online world's being dragged into it?
Exactly very hypocritical. Now, Unfortunately, that shutdown was short lived,
because just twenty four hours later, a Sebastian Bond changed
(11:45):
his mind. Under a pseudonym Helen McDougal, he wrote, after
further discussions, yet late into the night for some and
all afternoon for others, we have decided to deal with
the threats with legal action. As you will appreciate, we
won't be discussing the situation as it concerned family members
with no connection to Tattle. All matters are with our
legal team. He finished up by writing, once again, we
(12:07):
apologize for the stress of the last couple of days
and hope to see you all back on your favorite threads.
Please post on topic on the threads and ignore this
whole situation while I was dealt with as not to
jeopardize it. Well, when all this news came out, I
went straight to Tattle to see if there was a
discussion on Sebastian Bond. Nothing. There was no one discussing it. Oh,
(12:27):
so that twenty four to seven moderator that they claimed
to have is working for him. Yeah, exactly, well, inimpeccable timing.
On Friday night, Indy Clinton announced on her Instagram that
she knew the identities of the anonymous trolls who had
been bullying her for years. So a few weeks ago,
Indy revealed she'd hired a private investigator to find out
(12:47):
who was behind the constant harassment. And so on Friday night,
she appeared on camera in a hoodie and black sunglasses
with the glass of wine and she was ready to
spill the tea and it didn't disappoint Yeah. It turns
out that her private investigator had put together a sixty
four page report which unmasked the trolls. Now Indy was
(13:09):
unable to name and shame the trolls due to it
being an ongoing case, but she did let a few
interesting titbits slip. So she dropped that a lot of
her trolls are from Melbourne, with many of them mothers.
Did this surprise you, Amy, It didn't surprise me at all.
I think anytime you see a troll on TikTok or Instagram,
often when you click on their profile you'll see it's
(13:30):
either a motivational quote about loving everybody and being kind
and then it says like mama of three. So it
wasn't surprising. And also because Indy is a mummy vlogger,
she would attract a lot of other mums. But I mean,
it obviously shocks you a bit to find out that
somebody who is looking after children. There's often a perception
around what a mother is like they're very caring and kind.
(13:52):
To find out that it's actually mothers who have been
trolling Indy for years, it is quite sad. Really, it's sad,
and it does make me reflect and think, well, is
this a sign of women just having way too much
pressure on themsel I was not trying to make excuses
for these trolls because their behavior is absolutely awful, but
the fact that it is this particular demographic of women
(14:12):
who are probably trying to look after kids, trying to
have a job, and their outlet is trolling people online,
and it's just very interesting from a psychological perspective. As
Indy pointed out, she's like, this is why the cycle continues,
because you've got these mums who are sitting online trolling
other women. They're teaching their kids then to be bullies
in school. And that's one of the reasons why Indy
(14:35):
has gone to the lengths of hiring a private investigator
because she really wants this cycle to stop. And she
made it very clear that she's quite familiar with who
her biggest trolls are, so much so that she said
she knows what hospital one gave birth in, alongside their
abn and gynecologist name, and as for another, she said
that she could relate to them about regretting the tattoo
(14:56):
they got when they were eighteen, and that she knew
they went through birth out in twenty twenty four. She
also revealed that she's been engaging with some of her
trolls platforms just to let them know that she knows
who they are, and it was also to give them
an opportunity to apologize. Yeah, because she followed some of
them and then liked others posts on Instagram and TikTok.
(15:17):
Can you imagine your heart dropping? You would be like,
how the hell does she know who I am? I
went to India's following list because I thought, oh, I
wonder if it will pop up who she's recently followed,
maybe some insight into who the trolls are. But I
actually couldn't find anyone. I mean, I love this tact
because we did something similar. Not that we get trolled
(15:37):
at all on the level that Indy Clinton does, but
we unfortunately do have a thread in Tuttle Life dedicated
to this podcast strangely, and there is someone that posts
a lot in there. They seem to have a real
interest in us, and we wait out who they were,
so we just blocked them in all of our accounts,
and I think they were a little bit confused. And
the funniest thing was they had been messaging us all
(15:57):
of these complimentary things and saying how well we'd be
doing on the podcast. So it's just bizarre behavior. Yeah,
and that's the strange thing. Often people who troll influencers
at some point used to be really big fans, so
then they know a lot about them and something happens
and they completely switch. Now, as for Indy's biggest troll,
this is how she addressed.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Them after Melbourne. I mean Victoria, who was there? Oh
that's right? Wa? Hello Wa. My number one antagonist is
from Wa. How you doing. I probably haven't reached out
to you this week because I'm taking to court. I'm
just being honest.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Now since the revelation, influencer Watchdog account dutch Minty has
shut down. Now, dutch Minty was very vocal in calling
Indi out about sharing her children online. It's got a
lot of people thinking that dutch Minty or whoever is
behind that account, is this super fan that Indy is sewing. Well,
you would be in damage control, wouldn't you. I mean,
(16:55):
this is a troll's biggest fear being unmasked. And as
we said, it's often people that you would never expect.
I mean, some of these women who were about to
receive legal threats, they could hold really important jobs. They
could be teachers, they could lose their job, but that
they could be in healthcare. You just don't know who
these people are. Yeah. Now, Indie presented this in a
really joking manner and that was to gain traction. But
(17:17):
as clear, this is not a joke to her at all.
She's spoke in length about wanting to use her platform
for good and to stop cyberbulling. She's also put a
lot of her own money into this, and on Sunday
she revealed just how much cyberbulling had affected her. This
is what she said.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
This has gone further than just naming and shaming.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
This is.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
An epidemic that needs to stop because lives are being taken.
And for me, right, let me just put this very clear.
For me, a few months ago, what I have endured
it was life or death.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
This made me so sad because we had Indy Clinton
on our show back in December, and she was an
absolute ray of sunshine. She was so generous with her time,
so down to earth, so easy to talk to. And
I mean, we've spoken about Indy Clinton. I feel like
we try and be very unbiased, So if we have
someone on the show, we're still going to talk about
them if they do something controversial in quoteation marks. So
(18:14):
we've been pretty open with our reporting on her and
she was so gracious to come on our show. We
had a laugh. She was absolutely beautiful personally. She spoke
a lot about the trolling as well, that she'd endure it.
If anyone wants to go back and listen to it's
one of our Christmas episodes. And it obviously does take
a toll on people. I think often people forget that
influencers are real people and they see their lives online
(18:35):
and they don't think that these kind of comments get
to them, but they obviously do.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Well.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I think the worst thing about tattle Life is you
often see people direct in the comment at the influencers.
So in a lot of threads they go, oh so
and so like, for instance, Indy, we know you read this,
you should do this. Like It's like these people get
a kick out of knowing that the influencers are looking
at it, and they're even harsher. Whereas a rich Sebastian
(19:01):
Bond claimed that this was a place where people could
talk freely about influencers without them seeing it, It's like, well,
it's just human nature to want to see what people
are saying about you, and it's really hard to not
look at threats. Yeah, and I would put it to
listeners out there. If there was a page where people
were talking about you, would you not be intrigued to
read it? And I think everyone would go and click
(19:21):
on it. Now Australian influencers are excited about this revelation.
There's been a lot of talk online about it. M
Davies shared her thoughts to Instagram, writing the idea that
we might soon have the means to identify those who
are projecting their own insecurities as online hate is a
huge and long overdue shift in this industry. It's fucking
(19:41):
refreshing and hopeful to witness slash see online right now.
What's even more disturbing is that so many of these
people are parents, laugh out loud role models supposedly, Hey,
it's vile. I honestly can't comprehend how they find the
time or the desire to spread that kind of toxicity
while raising children. Karma has a way of circling back.
(20:02):
Always grateful for people like Indy Clinton, Nil San's and
Donna San's doing the work to figure it out. We
shouldn't be numb to receiving this bullshit day in and
day out, just because we choose to share more of
our lives online doesn't mean we deserve to be relentlessly
criticized and bullies. Openness is not an invitation for abuse.
Think about it anyway, Their time will come. I really
(20:24):
enjoyed hearing m Davy's thoughts on this because there has
been this blanket rule that if you put yourself out
there online, then you have to be okay with people
discussing you. And obviously we have this podcast where we
talk about influencer culture and things that influencers do, but
we really try to talk about the action rather than
the person, and we put our face and name to it,
(20:45):
so we're okay with the things that we say, and
we can have open discourse if someone like an influencer
isn't happy with it. But when you're posting anonymously, there's
no discourse there. You don't know who it's coming from.
You can't hold that person to account, and you if
you say the most disgusting things that you would never
ever say to a person. And I don't think that
that is a fair trade off for being an influencer,
(21:07):
particularly when you consider how saturated the influencer market is
at the moment. There are so many more influences than
they were, so nowadays an influencer, some influencers earn you know,
not even minimum wage. Some influencers are just doing it
for fun and they are copying so much ridicule that
they don't want to put themselves out there anymore. For example,
(21:29):
there's I know, there's a TikToker who has a million
followers in Australia and you might look at her and go,
oh my god, a million followers. She must be making
a packet, but she's not because Australia doesn't have the
TikTok creator fund. So I agree, it seems very unfair
when you're not even making like a lot of these
people are not making truckloads of money that you think
that they might be making because you think, well, maybe
(21:51):
that outweighs the good outweighs are bad. This person is
making a living off it, But it's often that they're
earning minimum wage and then being absolutely horn to shreds. Yeah,
because a lot of the threads about micro influencers are
just as vicious as we were saying earlier. And I mean,
even if an influencer was earning megabucks, it doesn't give
people the right to absolutely defame docs and harass them
(22:13):
and bully them until their mental health suffers from it.
But I suppose the only thing we have to compare
it to is how people treat celebrities. And people often say, oh,
we can talk about them and say whatever we want
because you know, they're living this lifestyle that you could
only dream of. But influencers are not. All influencers are
living the life. We've had a discussion about Tattle a
lot on this podcast and over the past couple of years,
(22:34):
and there's also been lots of chat in our group,
and I do want to put it out there. There
are some people who do use tattle in the correct way,
where they will actually hold an influencer to account. I mean,
there have been cases, for example, Ruby Frankie where a
lot of followers of her were concerned about her actions
and it turned out to be that she was doing
the wrong thing. She's been jailed. So there are instances
(22:54):
where Tattle Life has done good. Unfortunately, there are just
more people who are using the website as a platform
for hate speech as opposed to those people who are
actually using it correctly as a call out platform. Well,
I mean, and that might have been its initial intention,
but it's just become a cesspool of hate and an
echo chamber for everyone who doesn't like someone to get
(23:15):
together and literally try and destroy their life now. Leah
Atsinas has been vocal about her distaste towards tatle Life before.
When tatle Life looked like it was shutting down back
in January, she posted in our Facebook community saying that
the site gave her postnatal depression and she actually sadly
got to the point where she thought her daughter was
(23:36):
better off without her. Now, once the news broke, she
wrote on her Instagram story, anonymous bullies deserve to be
unmasked because of how fucking embarrassing it is to be one.
Imagine your family and friends finding out you bully people
online wild. I'm so glad this is happening. The damage
to this site and others did to me when I
was my most rule nearly broke me. What a fucking loser.
(23:56):
Lily Brown has also spoken up about Tutelelife, despite actually
say she didn't know about the website, which I found surprising.
She wrote, surely all us creators all band together and
take down the rest of the faceless accounts, destroying people's
mental health. It's about fucking time. And she went on
to say that over the last twelve months, she's felt
herself really pull back from sharing about her life because
(24:17):
of these faceless super fans who she says say the
most horrific things about her. And she said that she
would like to go back to posting more regularly and
not feeling like everything she says or does will get
picked apart by these people. I can see why she
feels that way, because, as you mentioned, there was a
Tattle threat about us, and I think it was really
getting into Sophie's head. I don't go and read that shit,
(24:38):
but I know she was somebody that would go and
have a look and it would make her feel shit.
And it does make you second guess yourself when you
are putting out content because you think, oh god, am
I sharing too much? Is it's going to be ridiculed?
Is it's just fodder for the trolls? So maybe we
are going to see if Tattle does get shut down
a lot better content. I mean, I've heard someath from
Barker talk about it recently. She talks of those golden
(25:01):
years of YouTube when everyone was so supportive, and I
think a lot of influencers don't share the way they
used to share because of this fear. Yeah. I think
in order for that to happen, though, social media platforms
need to get on board because, as in d Clinton said,
they're doing fucking nothing to help this situation. Like, I mean,
it's so easy for people to make up faceless accounts
(25:23):
control people. There needs to be some sort of verification
processes involved so that you can't create faceless accounts. I mean,
this case against hadle life really is a landmark case.
Legal experts believe that this case will set a precedent
for future action against digital defamation, and it's only a
matter of time before more victims come forward and possibly
(25:44):
even create a class action against tatle life, and that
would likely push for regulatory reforms in online speech and
anonymous platforms. And it really is set to open the
floodgates to lawsuits. I think. Well, the Sans couple who
sued tattle Life, they recently shared an Instagram post encouraging
creators and influencers to go and save their tattle threads
(26:05):
before they get deleted, because they are saying, well, one
this site is probably going to go down because as
you said, this has set precedence to go and save
the evidence before it gets deleted. I actually went on
there to start screenshotting ours, and I almost ready to
join the class action. Yeah I am, but I froze
because I again, I haven't looked at our threads since
(26:27):
I think it was March twenty twenty four, and last
time I did, I was heavily pregnant and the absolute
lies and bullshit these people were saying about me. I
relate to everything that Lea Asinas has said M Davies,
and I'm not putting myself on the same platform as
them because I'm fucking shocked that we even have a
Tattle thread where bloody nobody's but it hurts. And I
(26:47):
literally actually couldn't even screenshot it because I'm like, I
don't want to read what these people are saying. It's horrible,
But you know what, I will get someone to do
it for us, just because. But yeah, I'd happily join
that class Actually, imagine how many people that this is
going to run into the multi millions, Like it is
incredible how many people have been defamed. I mean, you
(27:07):
could go and spend one minute on Tattle and see
ten influences be completely and utterly defamed.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Well, now that Sebastian Bond has been on marsially, it's
only a matter of time before the trolls actually on
the website do Because I'm assuming that as a part
of this legal action, Title Life will have to hand
over their database. I know a lot of people sign
up using a fake alias, but surely with IP addresses,
the identities of these people are going to come out now.
(27:37):
A further review of this case is scheduled for the
twenty sixth of June twenty twenty five, where ongoing enforcement
of the damages and injunctions will be evaluated. As for
Sebastian Bond's future, he is facing substantial legal and reputational consequences,
as well as extensive financial orders against him and international
enforcement underway. I'm very excited to see what happens here. Well,
(28:01):
that is where we're going to leave things for today.
What an episode to return to. It was a massive episode.
Sophie will be absolutely crushed that she was a part
of this one, because I think she hates Huddle Life
the most out of all of us. It's a lot
of hate relationship, isn't it. Yeah, this podcast was recorded
on the traditional land of the Ghana people of the
Adelaide Planes. We pay respect to elders past and present
(28:21):
and if you do enjoy the show, we will be
dropping a subscriber only episode on Thursday, and please don't
forget to leave us a review.
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