Eversheds Sutherland comment: Monroe v Hopkins libel case stark reminder that everyone’s a publisher now

• Global

10-03-2017

Writer Jack Monroe has won £24,000 damages in a High Court libel action against MailOnline columnist Katie Hopkins. On this case, Andrew Terry, partner and media law expert at Eversheds Sutherland, comments:

“This was a case about very emotive tweets involving parties with a significant public profile. It is not the first ‘Twitter Libel’ case but it will be important in assessing whether “serious harm” (a requirement for a successful defamation claim) has been caused by tweets in future cases.

“Some of the arguments rejected by the court are notable. It was not accepted that Twitter is the “Wild West” of social media and incapable of being as authoritative as the traditional press. Ultimately, it depends on the credibility of who is doing the tweeting – and in this case Hopkins was well known and was a Sun columnist at the time. The first and most significant tweet was deleted after a few hours, which the defence argued meant it was transient and would not have caused serious harm. But, the court emphasised that it is not the period of time that tweets are visible that is important, but the impact the message has. In this case, the harm to reputation was serious enough to result in damages of £24,000 plus legal costs.

“The facts in this case were complex and gave rise to numerous sub-issues and detailed analysis. But, the conclusion is fairly simple – just because views expressed in social media are often highly controversial and conversation moves on so quickly does not remove responsibility or liability for what you publish.”

• Andrew Terry
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