On Friday 13 June this year, a name that many people had been desperately trying to uncover for almost a decade was finally revealed. In a Northern Irish courtroom, a former vegan recipe content creator turned internet entrepreneur from Somerset was exposed as the hitherto anonymous proprietor of a gossip website named Tattle Life. His true identity is Sebastian Bond, and his unmasking may have kickstarted the biggest flurry of celebrity lawsuits since the Leveson inquiry revealed the extent of phone hacking in British tabloids.<\/p>\n
Tattle Life is a members-only forum that invites users to create and contribute to publicly readable threads of what it calls \u201ccommentary and critiques of people that choose to monetise their personal life as a business and release it into the public domain\u201d. The site itself is monetised via Google adverts and ostensibly specialises in \u201ccalling out\u201d (overwhelmingly female) people in the public eye, policing them on their online commercial integrity (adverts, brand deals, sponsorships and so on) and on their lifestyles, specifically their parenting, marriages, relationships and friendships. In practice, many of its targets are not by any measure well known \u2013 they\u2019re small business owners, people with a modest online presence. Daily theorising on their personal and professional lives sits alongside mean-spirited commentary on stars such as Stacey Solomon, Katie Price, housekeeping influencer Mrs Hinch and huge vloggers such as Lydia Millen and Zoe Sugg. Northern Irish fashion retailer Donna Sands fell into the former category and it is she and her husband, Neil, a former Silicon Valley executive and serial entrepreneur, who have dealt the heaviest blow to the site since its inception more than eight years ago.<\/p>\n
It all began in January 2021, Donna says, when a friend told her she\u2019d heard Donna\u2019s name come up between colleagues at her office. Threads from a gossip site were being discussed. Donna, who had never heard of Tattle Life, went to look and found an extended rally of critical comments that became more extreme by the page. \u201cI realised very quickly it went from, \u2018She\u2019s fat, she\u2019s ugly, her wedding dress is so tacky\u2019 to, \u2018She looks so fat, maybe she\u2019s pregnant\u2019 and then to, \u2018No, she couldn\u2019t be pregnant because she\u2019s actually too selfish to have a child.\u2019\u201d Comments turned to her women\u2019s fashion business which, as is common for many independent retailers, Donna sometimes marketed on Instagram. \u201cThen it was, \u2018Oh, she must just buy it all off [low-cost fast fashion site] Shein and wrap it up in nice paper and send it out to her customers.\u2019\u201d This false claim was the first thing customers saw when they Googled the business. \u201cSo people lose trust in what the brand is and in the integrity of me as a business owner,\u201d Donna says.<\/p>\n
I remember writing to Tattle Life, hitting send and feeling the humiliation of begging somebody to stop hurting your wife<\/p>\n
Soon, the abuse took a darker turn. One Tattle Life user had followed the Sands to a house viewing, posted their location on the site and told users where the couple were moving before they\u2019d even shared the news with their families. Another, a solicitor, approached the couple in a restaurant, said she was from Donna\u2019s home town, accepted a drink and engaged them in conversation, before posting an embellished version of what was said on Tattle Life the same evening. The couple became nervous of anyone they didn\u2019t know well. Neil says, \u201cThe straw that broke the camel\u2019s back was when I wrote [to Tattle Life] and said, \u2018I\u2019m begging you to take this down.\u2019 I can remember writing those emails and hitting send and feeling the humiliation of begging somebody to stop hurting your wife. It was having a big effect on my family. My parents are elderly and our families have nothing to do with any of this \u2026 \u201d And yet, Neil says, these family members, hardly \u201cpeople that choose to monetise their personal life\u201d, also apparently fell within the Tattle Life users\u2019 ever-expanding remit and regularly featured in their discussions. Neil claims his pleading emails were stonewalled, as were those of multiple other Tattle Life victims. \u201cIt\u2019s a really important thing that\u2019s not being discussed,\u201d Neil says. \u201cThat when this guy woke up in the morning, he opened his email and a couple of things would just go through his head, I guess. The first is, \u2018I\u2019m going to ignore those solicitors\u2019 letters. I\u2019m going to ignore the court order that says \u2018persons unknown\u2019 at the top of it. I\u2019m going to ignore the mother who says that her son has cut himself today for the fourth time because he can\u2019t put up with another day\u2019s abuse \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n
Just as most of Tattle Life targets are female, so, too, is the majority of its user base. Women, famous and not, are commonly torn down for their appearance and weight, as well as that of their children and partners. There is an obsession with \u201cdishonesty\u201d that frequently becomes nonsensical and unhinged. I also create content on Instagram as part of my job and have variously been accused of secretly being taller\/shorter\/fatter\/thinner and of lying about my eye colour, having engaged in cosmetic surgery I haven\u2019t had, my need to wear glasses and even the weather outside. If this was the full extent of the content, I suspect we\u2019d all be delighted. But Tattle Life victims have also talked of deeply traumatic experiences inflicted on them by\u00a0contributors.<\/p>\n
Reporting influencers and celebrities to social services for child abuse is believed by victims to be a common tactic (one content creator who wants to remain anonymous told me in 2020 that social services had turned up to her labour in hospital). Fake and malicious reviews are left for small businesses, services, books and products created by figures of Tattle Life hate, sometimes resulting in failure and closure. People have been maliciously accused of alcoholism or drug addiction. Some victims claim to have left their jobs or closed their businesses as a result of the harassment.<\/p>\n
Since 2019, I\u2019ve spoken to more than two dozen victims (the Sands have been contacted by many more) who are too frightened to go on the record, or who can\u2019t because of legal proceedings they\u2019re bringing against the website. They\u2019ve cited documented incidences of death certificates, mortgage deeds, home addresses, medical information, official correspondence, children\u2019s photographs and their school details being obtained or leaked and posted on the site \u2013 all Googleable for public consumption. I have learned of three suicide attempts, including one by a model and mother I spoke to in her inpatient mental health facility, as a direct result of \u201cunbearable\u201d treatment by Tattle Life users. Neil and Donna Sands have even more testimony. People with disabilities, serious and terminal illnesses; their spouses, the bereaved, their children \u2013 all are considered fair game if connected to someone Tattle Life considers to be unlikable or dishonest. Those who describe the trauma of the abuse are generally accused of faking their feelings for attention and sympathy.<\/p>\n
Celebrities who have been targeted by Tattle Life include digital creator Lydia Millen \u2026 Photograph: Dave Benett\/WireImageTV star Stacey Solomon \u2026 Photograph: Suki Dhanda\/The Guardianmodel Katie Price \u2026 Photograph: Olivia Harris\/The Guardianand entrepreneur and author Zoe Sugg. Photograph: David M Benett\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Tattle Life has, the Sands say, a history of either ignoring calls to remove defamatory posts or doubling down on them. Having failed to achieve any redress via this route, they began pursuing legal action, which in 2023 resulted in the award of \u00a3300,000 in damages, plus substantial legal costs, which means that Bond now owes them more than \u00a31m. Describing Tattle\u2019s business model as \u201csolely aimed at making profit out of people\u2019s misery\u201d, Mr Justice McAlinden warned that \u201ca day of reckoning will come for those behind Tattle Life and for those individuals who posted on Tattle Life\u201d. A further ruling in June this year, finally allowing Bond\u2019s name to be made public, also led to a flood of emails to Neil and Donna from other victims. They now have evidence of vast amounts of correspondence to the site\u2019s email, forwarded to them by other Tattle Life targets after Neil appealed for proof that other victims\u2019 pleas had been ignored. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard so many. There was a pregnant mother who tried to take her life on Christmas Day because of what was happening on Tattle Life. There was another who ended up in a mental health facility, and the woman who was caring for her posted her patient notes on the site. The stories just make your head spin.\u201d<\/p>\n
So how did the Sands succeed in identifying Bond, where so many victims, journalists and others hadn\u2019t? Neil\u2019s tech background \u201cdefinitely helped\u201d, he says, explaining that a network of tech contacts helped to investigate the digital architecture of Tattle Life, \u201cbut I would say that perseverance was probably what won this out. I remember going, \u2018If I can find a thread to pull on this sweater, I\u2019m going to pull it all apart.\u2019 I just wasn\u2019t letting somebody hurt my wife like that.\u201d Much of the investigation involved grunt work and the forensic observation of Bond\u2019s mostly pseudonymous online identities. Connections were made between Tattle Life and social media accounts; then to Bond\u2019s own vegan recipe influencer account, @nestandglow, and other businesses. \u201cAnd, yeah, we eventually got to his identity but, again, his identity is hitting a moving target with a dart. He has so many different pseudonyms. I think he had 14 emails and most of them were active.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sands were insistent that the uncovering of\u00a0Bond had\u00a0to be done correctly, in contrast to the ethical void and absence of due process on hate sites such as Tattle Life. They requested anonymity for all parties, including Bond, until a verdict was delivered. Neil says, \u201cBy requesting anonymity the whole way through it, we weren\u2019t getting people\u2019s hopes up. So we had to make that choice every time we went into court to say, \u2018Let\u2019s just keep this reporting restriction on, so that this guy isn\u2019t impacted if it\u2019s not him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the more frustrating aspects of previous social media pushback against Tattle Life, and specifically attempts to unmask those behind it, is the way some victims have taken to doxing suspected users, admins and owners, using the same ham-fisted, scattershot and premature tactics as the people they seek to admonish. One online witch-hunt concluded with a novelist and her sister, both entirely innocent and uninvolved, being \u201cexposed\u201d on Instagram, where they received so much abuse that they closed their accounts. The Sands were determined not to engage in the same hypocrisy. There were also practical benefits to keeping Bond anonymous, Neil says: \u201cThere was a good chance that if we had raised his name earlier, he would have pulled the site down and run. And a lot of people wouldn\u2019t have seen their justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
This guy is going to throw his users under the bus. They\u2019re scared and they should be. The internet\u2019s not an anonymous place<\/p>\n
The Sands have successfully submitted an application to the courts obliging Bond to reveal the email addresses of some of Tattle Life\u2019s most egregious users, who needed nothing more than that to start posting anonymously on the site. They want people to know that there will be repercussions for online abuse, harassment and defamation, and that no one is truly anonymous. I\u2019m not sure many care. Since I was first contacted by a family blogger in 2019 and told I was a target on a \u201chate site\u201d, I have identified about 30 of the women who, at various points, have spent up to 16 hours a day criticising me and, much more upsettingly, making up stories about me, my family and my relationships. Some fled when they realised they had been uncovered, a small number wrote to me later to apologise, some remain while pretending to the group that they haven\u2019t yet been caught, but mostly they are unrepentant and happy to continue as before. They are teachers, nurses, solicitors, accountants, marketing professionals, college lecturers and at-home mothers living in Orkney, Coventry, Cambridge, London, the US, Australia. What they all absolutely believe is that they are on the right side of the argument; that they are merely \u201cexpressing an opinion\u201d on their subjects and their loved ones. Meanwhile, victims are expected to have a thicker skin, and advised, \u201cIf you don\u2019t like it, don\u2019t look.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donna and Neil Sands, whose determination finally unmasked the man behind Tattle Life. Photograph: Rob Durston\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Neil and Donna Sands reject this position. Neil says, \u201cIt\u2019s not regular human experience that anything you do has this centralised hub of hate, targeted specifically around what you\u2019ve put out into the world and that you should be just fine with it.\u201d Donna adds, \u201cThey say, \u2018Oh, well, don\u2019t go on to the site. They [the site\u2019s targets] must be highly self-centred.\u2019 Nobody wants to go on to the site but to see if there\u2019s something really untrue\u00a0\u2026 I always felt like I\u2019d rather know than have people thinking that behind my back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another issue with the often well-meant advice not to look is that it ignores the tendency for both users and content to follow subjects off the site, around the internet and into everyday life. Although I had a third party monitoring the site and screen-grabbing anything that I might need in the future, I personally became so obsessive in avoiding it that I bought blocking software, and asked my husband to Google anything I ever needed where there was even a small chance of a Tattle Life search result. Yet still I would hear from Tattle Lifers who couldn\u2019t resist bringing their \u201copinions\u201d to my social media accounts, \u201csupporters\u201d who felt the need to tell me what was being said, and even complete strangers in the street. I will never forget the humiliation and panic caused by a teacher at my son\u2019s school approaching me to say how sorry she was about \u201call the horrible stuff about you\u201d that she\u2019d read on Tattle Life. Or how several Tattle Life users \u2013 one of them a schoolteacher \u2013 persistently attempted to follow my then young children\u2019s locked Instagram accounts.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n They accused me of having rewritten what they wrongly believed was a privileged background (at one point, they elevated my local council officer father to a titled aristocrat) and made false statements about my dead mother. Most painfully, they interpreted my deliberate decision not to post about my children as a sign that I didn\u2019t much care about them. Unable to cope with the constant harassment, personal embarrassment and guilt at having put my loved ones in the line of fire, I seriously considered quitting my job and changing careers. I reduced my social circle dramatically, became nervous of going out and had to seek (ongoing) medical and psychological treatment. All of which Tattle Life users excitedly scanning this piece will doubtless be discounting as exaggeration, a just price for an online presence, or simply untrue.<\/p>\n No one is beyond criticism or unkindness, and I am\u00a0used to the combative and unpleasant nature of internet discourse. I am not kept awake at night by a stranger hating my clothes. But the lies, embellishments and unfounded speculation are unforgivable and damaging. \u201cWe weren\u2019t shy of someone saying you\u2019re fat or you\u2019re ugly,\u201d Donna says. \u201cIt\u2019s not nice and it is not\u00a0necessary because we\u2019re all adults. These are 30-,\u00a040-, 50-year-old women. We can take a lot of the flak, but it\u2019s when stories are made up and people believe it\u00a0and change their opinion of you, which undoubtedly\u00a0they will.\u201d<\/p>\n For a site purporting to be obsessed with honesty, Tattle Life appears to take a hard line on attempts to correct the record. There is much testimony from people who have jumped on the site to defend the subject with facts, and have been immediately blocked and deleted. Positive takes dilute the hate and may prompt reflection on the part of the community. They are bad for business. Neil\u2019s theory is that this is why Bond at one point closed the site to new members. \u201cHe didn\u2019t need them. They would turn down the volume within a thread. Somebody would defend their brother or sister, their wife or whatever, and then the thread would go quiet, because there was a voice of reason in it. And so new members were a problem for him. As long as he had the same people active on the site, saying the same crazy, hateful, clickbaity stuff, that was great for him. It was a great business model.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, maybe not so much. Following the ruling on the Sands\u2019 case, Tattle Life added a disclaimer to the site, letting members know that the proprietor is not responsible for the legality of user content or supportive of abuse. Neil believes this is a signal that users are on their own if someone decides to sue them. He points out that the traditional model of social media relies on trust between the owner of the site and the user. \u201cBut this guy, as soon as he gets a chance, he\u2019s going to throw his users under the bus.\u201d Neil claims to have evidence that traffic on the site has slowed dramatically and users are leaving. In fear of legal and professional repercussions, perhaps? \u201cThey are scared \u2013 and they should be. The internet\u2019s not an anonymous place and if this guy can be found, every one of those people can be.\u201d<\/p>\n The day he has to walk up the high court\u00a0steps will be the first time anybody ever answered for online hate as a\u00a0business<\/p>\n I ask whether remorseful Tattle Lifers have been in touch with them. I received a handful of apologetic emails myself after I went public with my experiences<\/a> with Tattle Life and even met one of my former trolls for BBC Radio 4\u2019s File on 4<\/a>. To her credit, she took full responsibility for her actions and said \u2013 I felt, sincerely \u2013 that she could pinpoint the exact timeline of difficulties in her own life simply by reading her vitriolic posts on the site. Donna Sands is suspicious of the sudden regret of fallen Tattlers. \u201cOf course, the first thing everyone says is, \u2018Oh, you know what? I was in a really bad headspace and I shouldn\u2019t have said it, and my career is so important. I\u2019m really, really sorry, and I\u2019ll make a charitable donation.\u2019 And you\u2019re like, \u2018Well, you\u2019ve been doing this for years and laughing \u2026 \u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Neil adds, \u201cI know lots of people are coming out of the woodwork now, being like, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s my mental health.\u2019 But so many victims, for these last eight or whatever years, their mental health was never a second thought to these people.\u201d<\/p>\n However vile, vindictive and dishonest a post on\u00a0a hate site may be, there is an uncomfortable ethical dilemma attached to outing its author. Will anyone really think well of someone exposing an NHS nurse who got carried away? Neil says they are aware of the potential for moral hazard: \u201cWe\u2019ve always been very positive people. We are not big personalities by any means. And I would hate for us to be the couple that\u00a0you\u2019re afraid to say something to in a bar in case you get\u00a0a legal letter \u2026 But I can tell you that there is a\u00a0deep thirst in those who were victimised for that user list. It won\u2019t be impossible to do, but I think we have to be careful because I think we\u2019re better than this \u2026 The\u00a0internet is better than this. Human beings are better\u00a0than this.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing is,\u201d Neil adds, \u201cthey\u2019re not all bad people.\u201d But they are, he insists, helping to make something very bad. \u201cThey\u2019ve all enriched that guy. I can tell you that much. I think it would engender a huge mistrust in society if you dragged every one of these people out and said they\u2019re all trolls and no one\u2019s to be trusted. But the most egregious ones, like the psychiatric nurse who posted the patient notes, that\u2019s not even the fat end of the wedge. That\u2019s the middle of the wedge. There are people who encourage others to take their lives on there.\u201d Donna cuts in, \u201cThere\u2019s a girl in my town and she had cancer, and there was a JustGiving page for her, and they trolled it all the way up until she died. And then after that, I was like, what are they going to say now? And it was, \u2018Oh look, the grieving husband, there he is!\u2019 They\u2019re laughing about the grieving husband.\u201d<\/p>\n So while they set about uncovering the identities of the worst Tattle trolls, what\u2019s the Sands\u2019 long-term plan? \u201cWe want somebody to be accountable,\u201d Neil says. \u201cThe day that he has to walk up the high court steps will be a big day for everybody because it\u2019ll be the first time anybody ever answered for online hate as a business.\u201d<\/p>\n In August, Bond suffered another blow when his challenge to the court order freezing \u00a31.8m of his assets was rejected. Disclosing that the Tattle founder was facing some 40 further lawsuits, Bond\u2019s counsel unsuccessfully argued that it would be unfair to force his client so sell bitcoin holdings of \u00a31.6m to pay for ongoing legal representation, due to the capital gains tax he would incur in the process. A further court date is scheduled. Bond\u2019s appearance, Neil believes, would provide a much-needed focus for \u201ca lot of victims who have no place to vent their kind of frustration, their anger, or to point at any sort of closure for what\u2019s happened to them\u201d.<\/p>\n Next, they want Tattle Life to be shut down. The business model of monetising somebody\u2019s pain has to go away, they say. Crucially, they want the nine major UK and Ireland mobile phone networks to de-list the site, making it inaccessible by smartphone, and for Google to suspend Tattle\u2019s ad revenue from platforming its roving ads. If that happened, the hate would become unprofitable, especially to a company that owes large sums of money to the Sands and potentially many more victims who say they\u2019re gearing up for legal action.<\/p>\n The Sands want Bond to be compelled to appear in court, to finally face his victims from the dock and know that he is being judged, just as Tattle Life victims have been for the last eight years. \u201cAnd I\u2019m very excited for that,\u201d Neil says. \u201cNo matter which way it goes, it\u2019s a victory because he never thought for one moment that anyone would catch him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday 13 June this year, a name that many people had been desperately trying to uncover for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-34876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}