Mother Sues After Bebo Story Hits Press

slick_shoes notes a story out of England: a woman named Amanda Hudson is suing six national newspapers for defamation and breach of privacy after they ran stories based on her 15-year-old daughter's exaggerated claims about her party, published on her Bebo site. The party was held at the family's £4m villa in Spain, and the daughter's account claimed that jewelery had been stolen and furniture and a television set thrown into the swimming pool; in addition there were claims of sex and drug use. The mother says that this was all falsehood and exaggeration. A number of newspapers picked up claims and photos from Bebo and ran them nationally. From the article: "The case is expected to have far-reaching consequences for third parties who use or publish information from social networking sites. Lawyers say it could place a duty on all second-hand users to establish the truth of everything they want to republish from such sites."

Editors?

> Lawyers say it could place a duty on all second-hand users to establish the truth of everything they want to republish from such sites

Isn't that what newspaper reporters and editors are for?

Re:Editors?

Fact checking is so last century. In the NEW and CONNECTED world of WEB 2.0, flash-mobs in the blogosphere fact check everything for you!

Assuming the mother is telling the truth

By US standards this case would likely be tossed out.

The first story I found from the Daily Mail [dailymail.co.uk] included getting a response from the mother, quotes from other party goers, etc

In the words of Jodie on her Bebo page after the event: 'There's so much damage and clothes stolen. A lot of broken doors. people cauight (sic) having sex.'

But the teenager seemed unrepentant about the chaos she caused, adding: 'I got punched by my mum for it and grounded until the summer. wat a a BITCH!'

Mrs Hudson, who is separated from Jodie's father, yesterday denied she had hit her daughter. ...
One partygoer, who said he had heard about the event from friends, said: 'Somebody said we were allowed to wreck the house because the birthday girl's parents were getting divorced.

'There were kids behaving like gangsters from a rap video, throwing stuff around and smashing things. There were chairs, tables, even a TV in the pool.' ...

Mrs Hudson had been hoping to move and had put her home in the exclusive El Paraiso development on the market.

Friends said she told them: 'The place looked like a war zone.
'All the banisters have been broken. The walls are ruined, the carpets are destroyed, furniture is broken . . . It is going to take months to sort out.'

One friend said: 'Amanda is still furious with her daughter and hasn't spoken to her for days.'

Last night Mrs Hudson played down the furore. 'Jodie had up to 400 people, but she knows a lot of people,' she said.

'With a party that size you are always going to end up with some damage.'

Asked about Jodie's comments on Bebo, she said: 'I don't know what she has written on her site, and I'm not saying anything else.'

Just because the mother denies (possibly criminal, depending on how hitting her daughter occurred and what the laws are regarding serving minors alcohol over there) the report doesn't mean it was defamation or they didn't do their jobs. Maybe the quotes were made up, and maybe the pictures from the girl's blog didn't show what they seemed to (teenagers paired up in bed, passed out drunk girls, young men/teenagers carrying beer around) but we shouldn't assume that.

According to wiki in the UK

A private individual must only prove negligence (not using due care) to collect compensatory damages. In order to collect punitive damages, all individuals must prove actual malice.

The US uses a somewhat similar standard. If you've got claims by the daughter, quotes from friends of the mother, and from party goers (and these are not fabricated) then to me "due care" has probably been taken.

Re:Editors?

Thankfully you said 'Newspaper' editors, if we held the editors around here to that standard there would be no stories!

Seriously, this is stupid; her daughter published the 'facts' as it were. She may have a claim, but her daughter should be enjoined from having a claim.
If I tell you I'm a drunk, and you publish it I can't later say that it wasn't true and sue you for publishing it.

Re:Editors?

Actually the ONLY way they can get away with it and NOT lose the lawsuit is to have said throughout the story "the young, 15 year old girl's blog CLAIMS that... etc etc."

If they said "and in related news, etc mansion was host to a party and etc got high, knocked up and smashed a TV" that's libel/defamation. Claims have to be attributed as such. Only verified information can be claimed to be true. I wager most newssources wouldn't verify shit they run anymore than most consumers of said news sources would actually VERIFY the news sources reports.

Prime example. Remember Die Hard 4? Remember the scene where everyone watches the bad guys take out the capitol? (or was it the white house?) Remember how the people near there go outside and see it is okay and still standing? What about all the other poor bastards who have no way of verifying or cannot be bothered or have had their government run communications get taken out? (Hence why i recommend everyone have a CB radio or ham rig in their home, even without repeaters, the chain effect works enough to cover a whole region of concerned individuals.)

Verification, personal inquiry are both important factors of stories, and journalists have discovered that yellow journalism works. Why report a "claim" as a "claim"? Because it keeps the libel cases away from your door.

Re:Editors?

That reminds me of how Fox News is constantly discussing crazy online rumors as if they were credible facts.

'Reports say that Obama has a taste for kittens! What a devastating blow to his campaign! Surely he will lose ground in the animal rights voting bloc. We'll cover this next on our 3 hour special "Barack-uriosity Killed the Cat."'

Hannity comes in: "So is the cat out of the bag on the Obama campaign? MySpace reports....." and so on and so forth

Re:Editors?

To quote John Swinton [constitution.org]:

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

Re:Editors?

You'd think that having incorrect information would tend to dissuade customers from parting with their money

Re:Editors?

You'd think that having incorrect information would tend to dissuade customers from parting with their money

You'd think, but sadly, no.

Re:Editors?

You'd think that having incorrect information would tend to dissuade customers from parting with their money

If that was true most of the tabloids would have gone bankrupt years ago.

Re:Editors?

Tabloids occasionally print the truth.

A stopped clock is occasionally right.

And they occasionally do fact checking... more than can be said for the "establishment" mouthpieces that are the newspapers and media "outlets" of today.

Do you find that when you say that face to face, people nod as if they agree with you, then their eyes sort of glaze over, then they start glancing at their watch and ... umm, gotta go - dental appointment!

Re:Editors?

Pff. You guys need to learn how the business works.

Day 1: "Daughter claims rich family had a drunken orgy party!"

Day 2: "Mother claims daughter told an 'embellished' story about the party"

There you go. A story and a retraction. Both of which are perfectly legal and true. The mother can sue all she wants, but what she should be doing is stringing up her daughter by her pinky toe. Instead, we end up with...

Day 3: "Family sues newspapers for reporting embellished story"

Even more sales! (Cha-ching!)

Rich teenage girl parties are news?

The fact that some party thrown by a rich 15 year old girl is national news is kind-of depressing. Am I missing something?

Re:Rich teenage girl parties are news?

The fact that newspapers published the account is not "news for nerds." The story is just background for what actually is important news - namely that there could be precedent in the UK for holding news organizations accountable for publishing second hand information without fact checking.

I wonder if the "compromise" will be that from now on newspapers will add "as reported on [insert blog name here]" on every such story meaning that they would pass responsibility for accuracy to the original source.

Re:Rich teenage girl parties are news?

News for nerds scandal would be a linux distribution CEO's son inviting Bill Gates to his house for dinner while his parents were on vacation believing he was having wild parties with drugs and sex.

Excuse me

Your privacy is invading our public.

would it make a difference

If they had written a story about the blog entry?

It seems to me that you couldnt possibly get in trouble for saying "According to her blog on myspace.com little suzy rich girls party got out of hand and someone threw a TV out the window"

I mean, thats certainly a true statement. If that would be acceptable to print without verifying the truth of the actual event then this isnt going to have much of an impact one way or another.

Personally I dont like the idea of a news paper regurgitating a blog as truth. Its one thing to refer to the blog, they way you might refer to another publication (ie "ABC news called florida for bush at 10:30").

typical irresonsible parent

The only relevant fact that newspapers needed to check was that it was actually the 15-year old daughter that put it up for the world to see. Other than that, as the legal guardian, if the mother didn't want her daughter to post this information, she should have been a better parent.

There might actually be a case others have against the mother for defamation of character, since she is responsible for the actions of her daughter, and her daughter might have defamed them.

I wish parents would stop blaming other people for their own failings. Until their children come off age, what the kids do and what happens to the kids is the parents' sole responsibility.

I can see the headlines now...

Bebo Babe's Barcelona Bash: Burglary, Buggery, Breaking

Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom to BS

Newspapers have always had the responsibility to verify their stories, why should that change simply because the information's off the web?

stupid people and lazy editors

I can't say I have sympathy with any of the parties in this case. If I was the judge, ruling on this libel case I'd want to award damages AGAINST both sides.

For the lady and her daughter - abject stupidity. Once you put something on the internet, it's there for life - if you don't realise this, you are not qualified to use the internet. Just as if yo don't realise cars can kill, if improperly driven, you have no business being behind the wheel.

For the newspapers - whatever happened to validating your sources? Is this something that only happens in the movies, or has the average rag descended to the point where all it does is reprint salacious and unverified fiction from all and any sources. They really do deserve to be sued out of existence in that case.

Since when was there a requirement for truth...

...in reporting? Maybe they do things differently in the UK, but certainly in the US, as Fox News demonstrated [wikipedia.org], there's no such legal requirement.

Privacy? What privacy?

From the article:

She did not consent to the publication in the media of any photograph of her or her party, or of any material that she wrote on her Bebo site

Too bad. When you publish stuff on the internet for all of the world to see it really undermines your privacy claims. Now, if this girl only allowed her stories to be seen by those she had designated as friends, then she might have a leg to stand on with respect to privacy.

Also, the defamation claim is curious. I haven't ever seen a case where the the originator of the false statements is the same person suing the newspapers for making false statements.

Re:What an age we live in.

Although it's true the papers should have fact-checked... isn't the daughter ultimately the one responsible for the false information? I guess suing one's own, minor, daughter probably doesn't make the same ch-ching sound.

Re:What an age we live in.

Publishing something does not make it a fact. It simply makes it published. If the information is not true, you can still get your pants sued off, as these newspapers are finding out.

That's why you should always check your sources. Learn to protect yourself from libel suits.