A case brought by, Lee Anderson, the MP for Ashfield, has recently settled by way of a public statement in Court, an apology by Google Ireland Ltd (Google) and an order that Google be responsible for the Claimant’s costs of bringing the action.
Counsel for the Claimant helpfully summarised the reasons for Mr Anderson bringing the claim against Google as follows:
“On 15th February 2021, the Claimant was informed by a colleague in parliament of a Google Ads advert being displayed on the Guido Fawkes website, a popular political news source attracting hundreds of thousands of regular readers.
- The advert linked to a fringe campaign group called Keeping Kids Safe, and featured a picture of the Claimant next to the headline “MP Office protect paedophile” and the underlying text “The office shared information with council accusing residents of criminal activity”.
- The Claimant and his family were extremely distressed by the advert, which falsely suggested he was protective of or sympathetic to the abuse of children and those who perpetrate such abuse. This was highly defamatory, threatening to erode the confidence of the Claimant’s constituents in him as their elected representative.”
When Mr Anderson informed Google of the offending post, Google immediately took the post down. When requested to do so, however, Google failed to inform Mr Anderson how widely the post had been viewed and further failed to respond to Mr Anderson’s requests made pursuant to the GDPR. Understandably, Mr Anderson’s position was that this exacerbated the distress caused by the offending post. Mr Anderson’s Counsel stated in Court:
“…I am here today to announce that the Defendant accepts that the advert was not true, that it should not have been displayed as it did not comply with the Google Ads policies, and that the Claimant has suffered distress as a consequence.
- The Defendant has agreed to join in this statement and publicly apologise to the Claimant for the distress caused to him and his family, and for any loss of confidence his constituents have suffered in their Member of Parliament as a result of seeing the advert. The Parties have agreed terms of settlement and the Defendant has paid the Claimant’s reasonable legal costs.”
The representative for the Defendant confirmed:
“13. The Defendant is here today through me to sincerely apologise to the Claimant for any distress the advert has caused to him and his family, and for any loss of confidence his constituents have suffered in their Member of Parliament as a result of seeing the advert.
14. The advert should not have been displayed as it did not comply with the Google Ads Policies.
15. The Defendant removed the advert as soon as the Claimant alerted it to it.
16. The Defendant is clear that all ads on its platform must comply with its policies and applicable law, and it is constantly working to improve its services to provide a good experience for users and advertisers. Anyone can report non-compliant or unlawful ads to the Defendant by using an ad’s “Report this ad” function or through its publicly available “Report an ad” form.”
Comment
Given that Google did not write the offending post but published it, following it being checked by a computer programme but no further human checking, notwithstanding the headline containing the words ‘MP’ and ‘paedophile’, it is perhaps not surprising that Google sought to settle this matter as quickly as possible. As an MP, such comments could be extremely damaging to a future career in politics and, in order to defend such an action, Google would need to rely upon one of the defences available in defamation cases (by way of example of available defences see our previous blog).
As Google was not the author of the offending post and accordingly would be extremely unlikely to have any evidence available to substantiate the allegations made or form an opinion along the lines of the content of the post, it is difficult to see how Google could avail itself of any possible defences.
How can Nelsons help?
Kevin Modiri is a Partner in our expert Dispute Resolution team.
Should you be affected by any online defamatory comments, please do not hesitate to contact Kevin or another member of the team in Derby, Leicester, or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or via our online enquiry form.
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