Would-be TikTok influencer ordered to pay substantial damages for made-up racism allegations
In a libel claim over four TikTok videos, the High Court has found that the defendant, a user of a gym in Sheffield, baselessly accused the claimant, a long-serving receptionist, of racism and racial abuse. [1]
Three of the videos were found to be “seriously defamatory”, and there was compelling evidence of actual reputational harm to the claimant. The defendant was found to have made up the allegations as an act of revenge for the perceived humiliation of being questioned over a frozen account, and to promote his aim to become an influencer on social media.
The claimant was awarded £50,000 in damages. The defendant was also permanently injuncted from repeating the libels and ordered to publish a summary of the judgment on his TikTok account.
Background
The defendant, Adnan Hussain, runs a TikTok account with the handle @adnanhussainmodel. One of the themes of Mr Hussain's TikTok posts was found to be allegations “calling out” people for behaving in a racist, discriminatory or rude way towards him or other people. During cross-examination, it was put to Mr Hussain that he was a social media influencer. He replied: “I'd love to be one; I always wanted to be one.”
The claimant, Jahangir Ali, worked as the receptionist at a sports centre. On 4 April 2023, Mr Ali challenged Mr Hussain for entering the gym without a working wristband. There was a short interaction between them, the content of which was disputed (as considered further below).
After the interaction in question, Mr Hussain pulled out his mobile phone and started filming Mr Ali at the reception desk. The footage filmed by Mr Hussain formed the basis of two TikTok videos published on Mr Hussain's TikTok account, along with a further two videos published on another TikTok account with the handle @jacko1909 and the username Jessi. All four videos named Mr Ali and the place where he worked.
Meaning
After brief consideration of the natural and ordinary meaning conveyed by the video allegations, the judge, DHCJ Guy Vassall-Adams KC, found that they would be understood to mean:
- Video 1: “Mr Ali had racially abused and victimised Mr Hussain”.
- Video 2: “Mr Ali had racially abused, harassed and victimised Mr Hussain”.
- Video 3: “Mr Ali is a racist”.
- Video 4: “Mr Ali is a racist”.
Status of allegations
All four videos were held to be statements of fact, rather than opinion. Ordinarily, calling someone a racist is to express an opinion, or a value judgment about them. [2] Yet everything depends on the precise context in which the words are used. In the case of videos 3 and 4, each allegation was unsupported by any other facts that would convey to the ordinary reasonable reader that it was an opinion. So, it was held to be a bare comment that must be defended as a statement of fact.
Other issues
The judge went on to consider three key issues.
1. Did Mr Hussain publish the videos from the Jessi TikTok account?
Mr Hussain denied posting the two videos on the Jessi TikTok account. Yet the judge found it more likely than not that he did post them, given that:
- There were striking similarities between the videos on the Jessi TikTok account and those posted from Mr Hussain's own account. The footage was the same, and they deployed the same “house style” (including the same font, same music, and repeated use of hashtags).
- Mr Hussain had motivation to create an anonymous account to post the videos, as he knew that further posts under his own name would jeopardise any chance of regaining his gym membership.
- The Jessi TikTok account was deleted less than a month after Mr Hussain received a letter of claim from the claimant's solicitors.
- Mr Hussain claimed to have no knowledge of the Jessi TikTok account, but this was implausible given his interest in publicising these issues on TikTok and the fact that his own TikTok account “followed” the Jessi TikTok account.
2. Serious harm
Mr Ali advanced an inferential case on serious harm to his reputation, since: (a) the allegations were grave; (b) video 1 received at least 17,300 views by 22 July 2024; (c) video 3 received at least 74,900 views; and (d) video 4 received at least 54,900 views (by 4 December 2023). Video 2 was deleted after roughly 14 days, and Mr Hussain said in an email that “hundreds of people have already downloaded it and shared it”. That was held to be an underestimate by the judge, who found that it would have been viewed by 3,000 people while it was online.
Mr Ali also relied on actual evidence of harm to his reputation. His evidence was that he had received comments about the videos from people and customers at his work, and that he had been shunned in his local community. While Mr Hussain took issue with the evidence of actual harm, the judge had no hesitation in deciding that the inferential case was enough to find that publication of videos 1, 3 and 4 was likely to cause serious harm to the claimant's reputation. Video 2 was less straightforward, but as it was posted on the same day as video 1, the judge found that many people would have viewed both videos, and so found that video 2 did cause (or was likely to have caused) serious reputational harm to Mr Ali.
3. Defence of truth
The truth defence hinged on the disputed nature of the confrontation between Mr Ali and Mr Hussain. Mr Hussain's defence alleged that Mr Ali was aggressive and made derogatory, belittling and racially offensive remarks towards him. Specifically, Mr Hussain claimed that Mr Ali said to him, “All of you Asians do this anyway. Why don't you do it in your own country where you come from?”, and that it was witnessed by his friend Mr Shah, who Mr Hussain claimed was present at the time, but by nobody else.
Mr Ali's evidence was that Mr Hussain was angry and shouting at the reception, talking over his colleague Ms Thornton as she tried to explain why he couldn't access the gym while his account was frozen. Mr Ali's evidence was that he went to assist Ms Thornton, and that Mr Hussain shouted over him. Mr Ali said that Ms Thornton was nearby and would have heard if he made the racist remark.
The judge found Mr Ali and those giving evidence in support of him to be credible witnesses, but found the evidence of Mr Hussain and Mr Shah to be problematic, as the hearing was held online and they were in the same room while each was giving evidence, and the judge felt that Mr Hussain was prompting his friend during the course of his evidence. Mr Shah's evidence was inconsistent with remarks that he had made during an investigation of a complaint made by Mr Hussain at the sports centre.
The racist remark attributed to Mr Ali by Mr Hussain was found to be inherently implausible, as Mr Hussain and Mr Ali both come from Pakistan. The judge believed Mr Ali's evidence that as an Asian man such language is abhorrent to him, and that he would never use it.
The judge considered multiple aspects of Mr Hussain's evidence, as well as specific evidence of his conduct on TikTok, and he concluded that Mr Hussain was someone ready and willing to make up false allegations of racism against other people just because he disagrees with something that they had said or done. The judge found that Mr Hussain made up the racism allegation as an act of revenge for the perceived public humiliation of being called to reception and questioned about his frozen account. Publishing the allegation on TikTok also served to further Mr Hussain's ambition to be a social media influencer and his portrayal of himself as a consumer champion who calls out racism and discrimination, despite the fact that, in this case, that portrayal was dishonest.
Remedies
Accordingly, the judge found in favour of Mr Ali, and he ordered Mr Hussain to pay Mr Ali £50,000 in general and aggravated damages. He considered that appropriate due to the serious and offensive nature of the allegation and its effect on Mr Ali, and due to Mr Hussain's conduct in insisting that the unfounded allegation was true all the way through trial.
The judge also granted Mr Ali a permanent injunction preventing Mr Hussain from repeating those or any similar defamatory allegations against Mr Ali in the future, as he considered that there was a significant risk of repetition without such an order. He also ordered Mr Hussain to publish a summary of the judgment on his TikTok account under section 12 of the Defamation Act 2013.
Comment
This case serves as a warning to those using social media to make allegations about other people. While Mr Hussain is far from a well-known public figure, he is reported to have had around 24,500 followers on TikTok and typically 15,000 or more views per video. The courts are willing to find that publishing false allegations to an audience of that size is inherently likely to cause serious harm to a person's reputation. Content creators need to be cautious about what they post online, as they will be held to account.
It is also interesting that, beyond the four videos that formed the basis of this case, Mr Hussain had also posted (and then deleted) another video on TikTok of another member of staff at the sports centre, falsely accusing him of racism. Further, an anonymous TikTok user had commented on one of Mr Hussain's videos, saying that they had been present at the reception area of the sports centre and had heard Mr Ali say something like “watch these two idiots now” as Mr Hussain and his friend entered. That was also proven to be completely untrue, as CCTV records showed that there were no customers in the reception at the time in question.
In an age where audiences are increasingly turning to social media and TikTok for news, this case illustrates that sometimes there is smoke without fire, and it can be dangerous and damaging to assume that allegations are made in good faith.
Article written for Entertainment Law Review.
