Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Riley v Sivier: Pleading standards for truth defence in Twitter libel—defences struck out; meaning paramount; no duty on celebrities to control followers (England and Wales)

Published on: 27 January 2021

Published by a LexisNexis TMT expert

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Article summary

Riley v Sivier [2021] EWHC 79 (QB) What are the practical implications of this case?

This judgment offers a practical benchmark for the bare minimum particulars needed to run a truth defence in a libel claim. The pleaded case relied on social media threads that required reading in their entirety. They were to be considered in full, rather than taken in isolation or fragment by fragment. Assertions that Ms Riley participated in, and incited, Twitter harassment of a 16-year-old were not borne out by the ‘straightforward’ and ‘civil’ interactions. The court dismissed the notion that a public figure with a sizeable audience, like Ms Riley, is obliged to stop followers from abusing another user on Twitter. That will reassure high-profile users who trade in forthright debate on the platform. The judgment sets out, with clarity, how these principles apply to Twitter, and they ought to be weighed by any media lawyer seeking to advise clients with large followings on Twitter on what to do, and what not to do, on social media. The decision underscores the centrality of meaning in libel when mounting a truth defence. The adjudicated meaning is the decisive threshold a defendant must satisfy if they are...

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