Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
Speaker 1: hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Speaker 1: Kate Torber and coming up on today's show, Tattle Lives,
Speaker 1: founder has been unmasked during a landmark defamation case, and
Speaker 1: Indy Clinton's quest to end cyberbullying. But first, Amy, you
Speaker 1: are back. You've ented maternity leave a lot earlier than
Speaker 1: I did. Yeah, it's been nine weeks, but it's actually
Speaker 1: felt like quite a while, and I am so up
Speaker 1: to date on all of the influencer news and drama
Speaker 1: because all I have been doing is watching vlog after
Speaker 1: log while I've been feeding Harry. I remember those good
Speaker 1: old days. Enjoy it while a last because I'm on
Speaker 1: no screen time with Jack at the moment and I'm
Speaker 1: wishing i could be watching YouTube. Well, it's getting to
Speaker 1: the point where I'm scraping the barrel because I was
Speaker 1: watching content from Molly May from about four years ago,
Speaker 1: and I thought, geez, my favorite influencers need to release
Speaker 1: some more videos. I started watching Molly May and Tommy
Speaker 1: Fury's Love Island series when I was breastfeeding. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to take it back to the start. Well,
Speaker 1: there is a new Love Island coming out. It's playing
Speaker 1: in the UK moment, so I will be watching that
Speaker 1: as well. Tattle Life has finally had its day in court,
Speaker 1: with the founder behind the snark website finally unmasked. For
Speaker 1: over seven years, Sebastian Bond has hidden behind a veil
Speaker 1: of anonymity, but that was ripped away on Saturday when
Speaker 1: an Irish couple successfully sued tattle Life the defamation and harassment.
Speaker 1: Now that the owner's identity has been exposed, it's opened
Speaker 1: the floodgates to further lawsuits. Now this is a landmark
Speaker 1: defamation case. It is set to shake things up in
Speaker 1: the influencer world. We have spoken a lot about tattle
Speaker 1: Life on this podcast, but Kate, for those listeners who
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with the side, can you bring us up
Speaker 1: to speed.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Tattle Life is an online gossip forum that claims to
Speaker 1: hold influences to account. It features countless threads dedicated to
Speaker 1: discussing individual influences, and since its launch in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: the website has reportedly attracted millions of views every month
Speaker 1: and generated millions of dollars in advertising revenue. It's actually
Speaker 1: become one of Australia's most visited websites, and the website
Speaker 1: builds itself as a place for commentary and critique of
Speaker 1: people that choose to monetize their personal life as a
Speaker 1: business and release it in the public domain. Title Life
Speaker 1: also claims that its purpose is to protect free speech
Speaker 1: and protect the public's mental health. Now, back in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: the owner of the site wrote, It's an important part
Speaker 1: of a healthy, free and fair society for members of
Speaker 1: the public to have an opinion on those in a
Speaker 1: position of power and influence. That is why tattle exists.
Speaker 1: We allow people to express their views on businesses away
Speaker 1: from an influencer's feed, on a site where they would
Speaker 1: have to go out of their way to read. This
Speaker 1: is not trolling. When somebody has to actually point out
Speaker 1: this is not trolling, you always know there is going
Speaker 1: to be trolling involved. It's like when people say no
Speaker 1: offense and then say something highly offensive. Exactly right, And
Speaker 1: despite claiming to have a zero tolerance policy towards abusive,
Speaker 1: hateful and harmful content, tattle Life has become renowned, as
Speaker 1: you said, Amy, for just that. It's been touted as
Speaker 1: the most toxic corner of the Internet, with many influencers
Speaker 1: complaining that they've been bullied to fame or doxed on
Speaker 1: the website. And what makes Tuttle particularly dangerous is that
Speaker 1: users are completely anonymous. There has been so much talk
Speaker 1: recently about whether people should be able to post their
Speaker 1: anonymous thoughts on the Internet. I mean, my view is,
Speaker 1: if you have to say something under the veil of anonymity,
Speaker 1: maybe you shouldn't be saying it, because you should be
Speaker 1: able to put your face and name to whatever you're
Speaker 1: going to say about someone or something. And we had
Speaker 1: this discussion recently because in our group, a lot of
Speaker 1: people started leaving anonymous comments and we found that the
Speaker 1: tone totally changed, because when people can post something anonymously,
Speaker 1: it often turns toxic very quickly. Yeah, and it got
Speaker 1: to the point where there were some threats where nearly
Speaker 1: every single comment was anonymously posted. So we turned that
Speaker 1: anonymous posting feature off and it has been game changing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just glad that Facebook actually gave us the ability
Speaker 1: to turn that feature off.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: There have been countless influencers that have called for Tattle
Speaker 1: to be banned, and there's been a lot of unsuccessful
Speaker 1: attempts until now. So two years ago an Irish couple
Speaker 1: called Neil and Donna Sans took things into their own hands,
Speaker 1: funding a legal battle against the website. So Donna is
Speaker 1: thirty four and she has a fashion business, while Neil
Speaker 1: is a forty two year old technology entrepreneur. Now I
Speaker 1: wasn't familiar with them, but I assume that they must
Speaker 1: be pretty well known influencers in Ireland, seeing as they
Speaker 1: had a forty five page thread on the website. It
Speaker 1: turns out though they are micro influencers. So at the
Speaker 1: time of recording, Donna has thirty thousand Instagram followers, which
Speaker 1: is likely to have been bolstered by the recent news.
Speaker 1: As for her husband, Neil, he's only got five thousand followers.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing about Tattle, you actually don't have
Speaker 1: to be a big fish. Some of the threads about
Speaker 1: micro influencers are just as extensive as the big influencers. Well,
Speaker 1: that kind of goes against their whole motto, isn't it
Speaker 1: on their website that you know, you have to be
Speaker 1: earning a huge living to be able to be talked
Speaker 1: about on the website. Exactly now, in February twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: Donna and Neil Sanm's asked haddle life to remove a
Speaker 1: forty five page defamatory thread about them. Now, the website
Speaker 1: just ignored their request and they allowed the comments to
Speaker 1: remain live on their website until May twenty twenty five. Now,
Speaker 1: the SAMs launched legal action against haddle life in June
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, and after a lengthy two year battle
Speaker 1: that they self funded, they were awarded three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: pounds as well as their legal costs. Wow, because you
Speaker 1: would assume, as you said, that it was a big
Speaker 1: name influencer that would have had the money to be
Speaker 1: able to launch a legal case against addle life, not
Speaker 1: some micro influencers. I mean, I got the vibe from
Speaker 1: the Instagram account that they're quite wealthy. They had their
Speaker 1: wedding in late Como. That says a lot. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, this is more than about money.
Speaker 1: This is about standing up for content creators and people
Speaker 1: that put themselves online and saying, hey, this is not okay. Well,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people on Tattle would be
Speaker 1: shaking in their boots because during the proceedings, Justice McK
Speaker 1: adlin said a day of reckoning will come for those
Speaker 1: behind tattle Life and for those individuals who posted on
Speaker 1: tattle Life.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The judge deemed that the website had been set up
Speaker 1: to deliberately inflict hurt and harm on others by allowing
Speaker 1: the anonymous trashing of people's reputation. Justin mcadlin called the
Speaker 1: website's action a calculated exercise of extreme cynicism. He went
Speaker 1: on to say, this is clearly a case of peddling
Speaker 1: untruths for profit. I mean that is the key. As
Speaker 1: you said, this guy has been making so much money
Speaker 1: having other people trash the reputations of influencers and content
Speaker 1: creators and also just micro influencers who owned businesses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy is making serious bank at the expense of
Speaker 1: a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: During the two year court case, the identity of the
Speaker 1: owner of tatle Life was suppressed. In fact, it's been
Speaker 1: a secret for more than seven years, with the owner
Speaker 1: posting under the pseudonym Helen McDougal. That all changed, though,
Speaker 1: when Donna and Nil's application to lift the reporting restrictions
Speaker 1: was approved and their real name was made public on Saturday.
Speaker 1: As we're revealed at the start of this segment. The
Speaker 1: owner of Tatle Life is Sebastian Bond, if you can
Speaker 1: believe it. He is a forty three year old food
Speaker 1: influencer who runs a vegan cooking instagram called Nest and Growth.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming there's no Tato Life thread on him and
Speaker 1: his content. Funny about that there isn't actually now, he
Speaker 1: is better known under the alias Bastian Dowwood and has
Speaker 1: attracted one hundred and thirty five thousand Instagram followers through
Speaker 1: his wholesome online persona now. According to the Nest and
Speaker 1: Glow website, Bond is a former office worker who quit
Speaker 1: long days in London to move to the countryside and
Speaker 1: share natural recipes and lifestyle instead of patrol website on
Speaker 1: the side. Yeah, I mean he's making bank off it.
Speaker 1: So the funniest thing was when I heard this, I
Speaker 1: was like, this is the same as when Dan Humphries
Speaker 1: was unveiled as Gossip Girl. I know, it's just so
Speaker 1: ironic that it's a make and also that he's an influencer.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the same man who wrote on
Speaker 1: Tattle that influencer marketing was insidious and that influencers prey
Speaker 1: on the parasocial relationship that they have with their audience,
Speaker 1: to quote, houldwink their followers into getting more money. Did
Speaker 1: you have a look at his page, because I of
Speaker 1: course went straight to there when I saw the news,
Speaker 1: and it was pretty uninspiring. He hasn't posted since twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: They were sort of ordinary photos of vegan food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'd been posting since twenty sixteen, but as he said,
Speaker 1: he stopped posting in twenty twenty, which is kind of
Speaker 1: odd because that's when everyone kind of started posting about food.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if maybe he bought the followers, because again,
Speaker 1: the content wasn't that crash hot. It was hard to tell, though,
Speaker 1: because I went into the comment section and it was
Speaker 1: literally every influencer and their dog abusing him, which I loved.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I wonder if he stopped creating content in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: because that's when Tattle would have exploded in popularity. We know,
Speaker 1: when everyone was locked down in their houses, that's when
Speaker 1: a lot of people would have turned to websites like tatte.
Speaker 1: So perhaps he stopped because he was making more and
Speaker 1: more money and he didn't need to be working as
Speaker 1: an influencer on the side. Perhaps he was scared that
Speaker 1: he might get found out. I mean, it's pretty hypocritical
Speaker 1: to slam influencers and then b one yourself. In terms
Speaker 1: of him pretending to be a woman, it's so messed
Speaker 1: up to think it's this man pretending to be a
Speaker 1: woman and encouraging other women to tear women down well,
Speaker 1: making so much money off it. It's bullshit and a
Speaker 1: lot of men would probably look at Tattle and go, oh,
Speaker 1: that's just a whole load of women having a bitch
Speaker 1: about other women. The irony that it's a man that's
Speaker 1: all behind it. Yeah, I mean, as we touched on,
Speaker 1: it's reported that the avid revenue he was earning was
Speaker 1: around a million dollars a year, and that was in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, so I'm guessing it's gone up by then.
Speaker 1: And that fact alone completely contradicts Tattle Life's claim that
Speaker 1: it operates solely for this sake of public discourse. What
Speaker 1: I find really fascinating is more details are coming out
Speaker 1: about this investigation that has unmasked Sebastian Bond. So the
Speaker 1: couple's legal team have said that this was a global
Speaker 1: in investigation, and it turns out that Bond used his
Speaker 1: two businesses to try and conceal his identity. So one
Speaker 1: is a UK registered company called Yuzu Zest, while the
Speaker 1: other is registered in Hong Kong and it's called coum
Speaker 1: quat Tree Limited. Interestingly, tattle Life claims to be operated
Speaker 1: by a company called Lime Goss, which does really fit
Speaker 1: with the whole citrus theme. It is not going on.
Speaker 1: We should have known he was a vegan blogger. There
Speaker 1: were so many clues I know, and the SAMs legal
Speaker 1: team have done an excellent job because they had to
Speaker 1: use a mix of legal innovation and digital evidence to
Speaker 1: track down Bond and his assets, including money transferred around
Speaker 1: the world. According to the legal team, it was a
Speaker 1: very sophisticated effort to avoid scrutiny and it appears the
Speaker 1: writing was on the wall for Sebastian six months ago.
Speaker 1: So back in January, tattle Life shopped its users by
Speaker 1: announcing it was closing due to threats. The website went
Speaker 1: down for several hours and returned operating under a new name,
Speaker 1: eight Cafe, an interesting name. A lot of people said
Speaker 1: it sounded like the Hate Cafe, which would have been
Speaker 1: bang on. It could have called it like sour pusses
Speaker 1: or something stuck with the citrus theme now. The owner
Speaker 1: then posted a farewell message, writing, Unfortunately, recent threats directed
Speaker 1: at members of one of our families have left us
Speaker 1: with no choice but to shut down the site. It's
Speaker 1: simply unfair for them to be impacted by something they
Speaker 1: have zero involvement in. Now, that was pretty ironic. The
Speaker 1: Sebastian Bond tried to take this moral high ground. You know,
Speaker 1: when his family was dragged into it, it was terrible.
Speaker 1: How about when every other influencers family who has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the online world's being dragged into it?
Speaker 1: Exactly very hypocritical. Now, Unfortunately, that shutdown was short lived,
Speaker 1: because just twenty four hours later, a Sebastian Bond changed
Speaker 1: his mind. Under a pseudonym Helen McDougal, he wrote, after
Speaker 1: further discussions, yet late into the night for some and
Speaker 1: all afternoon for others, we have decided to deal with
Speaker 1: the threats with legal action. As you will appreciate, we
Speaker 1: won't be discussing the situation as it concerned family members
Speaker 1: with no connection to Tattle. All matters are with our
Speaker 1: legal team. He finished up by writing, once again, we
Speaker 1: apologize for the stress of the last couple of days
Speaker 1: and hope to see you all back on your favorite threads.
Speaker 1: Please post on topic on the threads and ignore this
Speaker 1: whole situation while I was dealt with as not to
Speaker 1: jeopardize it. Well, when all this news came out, I
Speaker 1: went straight to Tattle to see if there was a
Speaker 1: discussion on Sebastian Bond. Nothing. There was no one discussing it. Oh,
Speaker 1: so that twenty four to seven moderator that they claimed
Speaker 1: to have is working for him. Yeah, exactly, well, inimpeccable timing.
Speaker 1: On Friday night, Indy Clinton announced on her Instagram that
Speaker 1: she knew the identities of the anonymous trolls who had
Speaker 1: been bullying her for years. So a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: Indy revealed she'd hired a private investigator to find out
Speaker 1: who was behind the constant harassment. And so on Friday night,
Speaker 1: she appeared on camera in a hoodie and black sunglasses
Speaker 1: with the glass of wine and she was ready to
Speaker 1: spill the tea and it didn't disappoint Yeah. It turns
Speaker 1: out that her private investigator had put together a sixty
Speaker 1: four page report which unmasked the trolls. Now Indy was
Speaker 1: unable to name and shame the trolls due to it
Speaker 1: being an ongoing case, but she did let a few
Speaker 1: interesting titbits slip. So she dropped that a lot of
Speaker 1: her trolls are from Melbourne, with many of them mothers.
Speaker 1: Did this surprise you, Amy, It didn't surprise me at all.
Speaker 1: I think anytime you see a troll on TikTok or Instagram,
Speaker 1: often when you click on their profile you'll see it's
Speaker 1: either a motivational quote about loving everybody and being kind
Speaker 1: and then it says like mama of three. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't surprising. And also because Indy is a mummy vlogger,
Speaker 1: she would attract a lot of other mums. But I mean,
Speaker 1: it obviously shocks you a bit to find out that
Speaker 1: somebody who is looking after children. There's often a perception
Speaker 1: around what a mother is like they're very caring and kind.
Speaker 1: To find out that it's actually mothers who have been
Speaker 1: trolling Indy for years, it is quite sad. Really, it's sad,
Speaker 1: and it does make me reflect and think, well, is
Speaker 1: this a sign of women just having way too much
Speaker 1: pressure on themsel I was not trying to make excuses
Speaker 1: for these trolls because their behavior is absolutely awful, but
Speaker 1: the fact that it is this particular demographic of women
Speaker 1: who are probably trying to look after kids, trying to
Speaker 1: have a job, and their outlet is trolling people online,
Speaker 1: and it's just very interesting from a psychological perspective. As
Speaker 1: Indy pointed out, she's like, this is why the cycle continues,
Speaker 1: because you've got these mums who are sitting online trolling
Speaker 1: other women. They're teaching their kids then to be bullies
Speaker 1: in school. And that's one of the reasons why Indy
Speaker 1: has gone to the lengths of hiring a private investigator
Speaker 1: because she really wants this cycle to stop. And she
Speaker 1: made it very clear that she's quite familiar with who
Speaker 1: her biggest trolls are, so much so that she said
Speaker 1: she knows what hospital one gave birth in, alongside their
Speaker 1: abn and gynecologist name, and as for another, she said
Speaker 1: that she could relate to them about regretting the tattoo
Speaker 1: they got when they were eighteen, and that she knew
Speaker 1: they went through birth out in twenty twenty four. She
Speaker 1: also revealed that she's been engaging with some of her
Speaker 1: trolls platforms just to let them know that she knows
Speaker 1: who they are, and it was also to give them
Speaker 1: an opportunity to apologize. Yeah, because she followed some of
Speaker 1: them and then liked others posts on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine your heart dropping? You would be like,
Speaker 1: how the hell does she know who I am? I
Speaker 1: went to India's following list because I thought, oh, I
Speaker 1: wonder if it will pop up who she's recently followed,
Speaker 1: maybe some insight into who the trolls are. But I
Speaker 1: actually couldn't find anyone. I mean, I love this tact
Speaker 1: because we did something similar. Not that we get trolled
Speaker 1: at all on the level that Indy Clinton does, but
Speaker 1: we unfortunately do have a thread in Tuttle Life dedicated
Speaker 1: to this podcast strangely, and there is someone that posts
Speaker 1: a lot in there. They seem to have a real
Speaker 1: interest in us, and we wait out who they were,
Speaker 1: so we just blocked them in all of our accounts,
Speaker 1: and I think they were a little bit confused. And
Speaker 1: the funniest thing was they had been messaging us all
Speaker 1: of these complimentary things and saying how well we'd be
Speaker 1: doing on the podcast. So it's just bizarre behavior. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's the strange thing. Often people who troll influencers
Speaker 1: at some point used to be really big fans, so
Speaker 1: then they know a lot about them and something happens
Speaker 1: and they completely switch. Now, as for Indy's biggest troll,
Speaker 1: this is how she addressed.
Speaker 2: Them after Melbourne. I mean Victoria, who was there? Oh
Speaker 2: that's right? Wa? Hello Wa. My number one antagonist is
Speaker 2: from Wa. How you doing. I probably haven't reached out
Speaker 2: to you this week because I'm taking to court. I'm
Speaker 2: just being honest.
Speaker 1: Now since the revelation, influencer Watchdog account dutch Minty has
Speaker 1: shut down. Now, dutch Minty was very vocal in calling
Speaker 1: Indi out about sharing her children online. It's got a
Speaker 1: lot of people thinking that dutch Minty or whoever is
Speaker 1: behind that account, is this super fan that Indy is sewing. Well,
Speaker 1: you would be in damage control, wouldn't you. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a troll's biggest fear being unmasked. And as
Speaker 1: we said, it's often people that you would never expect.
Speaker 1: I mean, some of these women who were about to
Speaker 1: receive legal threats, they could hold really important jobs. They
Speaker 1: could be teachers, they could lose their job, but that
Speaker 1: they could be in healthcare. You just don't know who
Speaker 1: these people are. Yeah. Now, Indie presented this in a
Speaker 1: really joking manner and that was to gain traction. But
Speaker 1: as clear, this is not a joke to her at all.
Speaker 1: She's spoke in length about wanting to use her platform
Speaker 1: for good and to stop cyberbulling. She's also put a
Speaker 1: lot of her own money into this, and on Sunday
Speaker 1: she revealed just how much cyberbulling had affected her. This
Speaker 1: is what she said.
Speaker 2: This has gone further than just naming and shaming.
Speaker 1: This is.
Speaker 2: An epidemic that needs to stop because lives are being taken.
Speaker 2: And for me, right, let me just put this very clear.
Speaker 2: For me, a few months ago, what I have endured
Speaker 2: it was life or death.
Speaker 1: This made me so sad because we had Indy Clinton
Speaker 1: on our show back in December, and she was an
Speaker 1: absolute ray of sunshine. She was so generous with her time,
Speaker 1: so down to earth, so easy to talk to. And
Speaker 1: I mean, we've spoken about Indy Clinton. I feel like
Speaker 1: we try and be very unbiased, So if we have
Speaker 1: someone on the show, we're still going to talk about
Speaker 1: them if they do something controversial in quoteation marks. So
Speaker 1: we've been pretty open with our reporting on her and
Speaker 1: she was so gracious to come on our show. We
Speaker 1: had a laugh. She was absolutely beautiful personally. She spoke
Speaker 1: a lot about the trolling as well, that she'd endure it.
Speaker 1: If anyone wants to go back and listen to it's
Speaker 1: one of our Christmas episodes. And it obviously does take
Speaker 1: a toll on people. I think often people forget that
Speaker 1: influencers are real people and they see their lives online
Speaker 1: and they don't think that these kind of comments get
Speaker 1: to them, but they obviously do.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I think the worst thing about tattle Life is you
Speaker 1: often see people direct in the comment at the influencers.
Speaker 1: So in a lot of threads they go, oh so
Speaker 1: and so like, for instance, Indy, we know you read this,
Speaker 1: you should do this. Like It's like these people get
Speaker 1: a kick out of knowing that the influencers are looking
Speaker 1: at it, and they're even harsher. Whereas a rich Sebastian
Speaker 1: Bond claimed that this was a place where people could
Speaker 1: talk freely about influencers without them seeing it, It's like, well,
Speaker 1: it's just human nature to want to see what people
Speaker 1: are saying about you, and it's really hard to not
Speaker 1: look at threats. Yeah, and I would put it to
Speaker 1: listeners out there. If there was a page where people
Speaker 1: were talking about you, would you not be intrigued to
Speaker 1: read it? And I think everyone would go and click
Speaker 1: on it. Now Australian influencers are excited about this revelation.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of talk online about it. M
Speaker 1: Davies shared her thoughts to Instagram, writing the idea that
Speaker 1: we might soon have the means to identify those who
Speaker 1: are projecting their own insecurities as online hate is a
Speaker 1: huge and long overdue shift in this industry. It's fucking
Speaker 1: refreshing and hopeful to witness slash see online right now.
Speaker 1: What's even more disturbing is that so many of these
Speaker 1: people are parents, laugh out loud role models supposedly, Hey,
Speaker 1: it's vile. I honestly can't comprehend how they find the
Speaker 1: time or the desire to spread that kind of toxicity
Speaker 1: while raising children. Karma has a way of circling back.
Speaker 1: Always grateful for people like Indy Clinton, Nil San's and
Speaker 1: Donna San's doing the work to figure it out. We
Speaker 1: shouldn't be numb to receiving this bullshit day in and
Speaker 1: day out, just because we choose to share more of
Speaker 1: our lives online doesn't mean we deserve to be relentlessly
Speaker 1: criticized and bullies. Openness is not an invitation for abuse.
Speaker 1: Think about it anyway, Their time will come. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed hearing m Davy's thoughts on this because there has
Speaker 1: been this blanket rule that if you put yourself out
Speaker 1: there online, then you have to be okay with people
Speaker 1: discussing you. And obviously we have this podcast where we
Speaker 1: talk about influencer culture and things that influencers do, but
Speaker 1: we really try to talk about the action rather than
Speaker 1: the person, and we put our face and name to it,
Speaker 1: so we're okay with the things that we say, and
Speaker 1: we can have open discourse if someone like an influencer
Speaker 1: isn't happy with it. But when you're posting anonymously, there's
Speaker 1: no discourse there. You don't know who it's coming from.
Speaker 1: You can't hold that person to account, and you if
Speaker 1: you say the most disgusting things that you would never
Speaker 1: ever say to a person. And I don't think that
Speaker 1: that is a fair trade off for being an influencer,
Speaker 1: particularly when you consider how saturated the influencer market is
Speaker 1: at the moment. There are so many more influences than
Speaker 1: they were, so nowadays an influencer, some influencers earn you know,
Speaker 1: not even minimum wage. Some influencers are just doing it
Speaker 1: for fun and they are copying so much ridicule that
Speaker 1: they don't want to put themselves out there anymore. For example,
Speaker 1: there's I know, there's a TikToker who has a million
Speaker 1: followers in Australia and you might look at her and go,
Speaker 1: oh my god, a million followers. She must be making
Speaker 1: a packet, but she's not because Australia doesn't have the
Speaker 1: TikTok creator fund. So I agree, it seems very unfair
Speaker 1: when you're not even making like a lot of these
Speaker 1: people are not making truckloads of money that you think
Speaker 1: that they might be making because you think, well, maybe
Speaker 1: that outweighs the good outweighs are bad. This person is
Speaker 1: making a living off it, But it's often that they're
Speaker 1: earning minimum wage and then being absolutely horn to shreds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because a lot of the threads about micro influencers are
Speaker 1: just as vicious as we were saying earlier. And I mean,
Speaker 1: even if an influencer was earning megabucks, it doesn't give
Speaker 1: people the right to absolutely defame docs and harass them
Speaker 1: and bully them until their mental health suffers from it.
Speaker 1: But I suppose the only thing we have to compare
Speaker 1: it to is how people treat celebrities. And people often say, oh,
Speaker 1: we can talk about them and say whatever we want
Speaker 1: because you know, they're living this lifestyle that you could
Speaker 1: only dream of. But influencers are not. All influencers are
Speaker 1: living the life. We've had a discussion about Tattle a
Speaker 1: lot on this podcast and over the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: and there's also been lots of chat in our group,
Speaker 1: and I do want to put it out there. There
Speaker 1: are some people who do use tattle in the correct way,
Speaker 1: where they will actually hold an influencer to account. I mean,
Speaker 1: there have been cases, for example, Ruby Frankie where a
Speaker 1: lot of followers of her were concerned about her actions
Speaker 1: and it turned out to be that she was doing
Speaker 1: the wrong thing. She's been jailed. So there are instances
Speaker 1: where Tattle Life has done good. Unfortunately, there are just
Speaker 1: more people who are using the website as a platform
Speaker 1: for hate speech as opposed to those people who are
Speaker 1: actually using it correctly as a call out platform. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, and that might have been its initial intention,
Speaker 1: but it's just become a cesspool of hate and an
Speaker 1: echo chamber for everyone who doesn't like someone to get
Speaker 1: together and literally try and destroy their life now. Leah
Speaker 1: Atsinas has been vocal about her distaste towards tatle Life before.
Speaker 1: When tatle Life looked like it was shutting down back
Speaker 1: in January, she posted in our Facebook community saying that
Speaker 1: the site gave her postnatal depression and she actually sadly
Speaker 1: got to the point where she thought her daughter was
Speaker 1: better off without her. Now, once the news broke, she
Speaker 1: wrote on her Instagram story, anonymous bullies deserve to be
Speaker 1: unmasked because of how fucking embarrassing it is to be one.
Speaker 1: Imagine your family and friends finding out you bully people
Speaker 1: online wild. I'm so glad this is happening. The damage
Speaker 1: to this site and others did to me when I
Speaker 1: was my most rule nearly broke me. What a fucking loser.
Speaker 1: Lily Brown has also spoken up about Tutelelife, despite actually
Speaker 1: say she didn't know about the website, which I found surprising.
Speaker 1: She wrote, surely all us creators all band together and
Speaker 1: take down the rest of the faceless accounts, destroying people's
Speaker 1: mental health. It's about fucking time. And she went on
Speaker 1: to say that over the last twelve months, she's felt
Speaker 1: herself really pull back from sharing about her life because
Speaker 1: of these faceless super fans who she says say the
Speaker 1: most horrific things about her. And she said that she
Speaker 1: would like to go back to posting more regularly and
Speaker 1: not feeling like everything she says or does will get
Speaker 1: picked apart by these people. I can see why she
Speaker 1: feels that way, because, as you mentioned, there was a
Speaker 1: Tattle threat about us, and I think it was really
Speaker 1: getting into Sophie's head. I don't go and read that shit,
Speaker 1: but I know she was somebody that would go and
Speaker 1: have a look and it would make her feel shit.
Speaker 1: And it does make you second guess yourself when you
Speaker 1: are putting out content because you think, oh god, am
Speaker 1: I sharing too much? Is it's going to be ridiculed?
Speaker 1: Is it's just fodder for the trolls? So maybe we
Speaker 1: are going to see if Tattle does get shut down
Speaker 1: a lot better content. I mean, I've heard someath from
Speaker 1: Barker talk about it recently. She talks of those golden
Speaker 1: years of YouTube when everyone was so supportive, and I
Speaker 1: think a lot of influencers don't share the way they
Speaker 1: used to share because of this fear. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: in order for that to happen, though, social media platforms
Speaker 1: need to get on board because, as in d Clinton said,
Speaker 1: they're doing fucking nothing to help this situation. Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's so easy for people to make up faceless accounts
Speaker 1: control people. There needs to be some sort of verification
Speaker 1: processes involved so that you can't create faceless accounts. I mean,
Speaker 1: this case against hadle life really is a landmark case.
Speaker 1: Legal experts believe that this case will set a precedent
Speaker 1: for future action against digital defamation, and it's only a
Speaker 1: matter of time before more victims come forward and possibly
Speaker 1: even create a class action against tatle life, and that
Speaker 1: would likely push for regulatory reforms in online speech and
Speaker 1: anonymous platforms. And it really is set to open the
Speaker 1: floodgates to lawsuits. I think. Well, the Sans couple who
Speaker 1: sued tattle Life, they recently shared an Instagram post encouraging
Speaker 1: creators and influencers to go and save their tattle threads
Speaker 1: before they get deleted, because they are saying, well, one
Speaker 1: this site is probably going to go down because as
Speaker 1: you said, this has set precedence to go and save
Speaker 1: the evidence before it gets deleted. I actually went on
Speaker 1: there to start screenshotting ours, and I almost ready to
Speaker 1: join the class action. Yeah I am, but I froze
Speaker 1: because I again, I haven't looked at our threads since
Speaker 1: I think it was March twenty twenty four, and last
Speaker 1: time I did, I was heavily pregnant and the absolute
Speaker 1: lies and bullshit these people were saying about me. I
Speaker 1: relate to everything that Lea Asinas has said M Davies,
Speaker 1: and I'm not putting myself on the same platform as
Speaker 1: them because I'm fucking shocked that we even have a
Speaker 1: Tattle thread where bloody nobody's but it hurts. And I
Speaker 1: literally actually couldn't even screenshot it because I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to read what these people are saying. It's horrible,
Speaker 1: But you know what, I will get someone to do
Speaker 1: it for us, just because. But yeah, I'd happily join
Speaker 1: that class Actually, imagine how many people that this is
Speaker 1: going to run into the multi millions, Like it is
Speaker 1: incredible how many people have been defamed. I mean, you
Speaker 1: could go and spend one minute on Tattle and see
Speaker 1: ten influences be completely and utterly defamed.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, now that Sebastian Bond has been on marsially, it's
Speaker 1: only a matter of time before the trolls actually on
Speaker 1: the website do Because I'm assuming that as a part
Speaker 1: of this legal action, Title Life will have to hand
Speaker 1: over their database. I know a lot of people sign
Speaker 1: up using a fake alias, but surely with IP addresses,
Speaker 1: the identities of these people are going to come out now.
Speaker 1: A further review of this case is scheduled for the
Speaker 1: twenty sixth of June twenty twenty five, where ongoing enforcement
Speaker 1: of the damages and injunctions will be evaluated. As for
Speaker 1: Sebastian Bond's future, he is facing substantial legal and reputational consequences,
Speaker 1: as well as extensive financial orders against him and international
Speaker 1: enforcement underway. I'm very excited to see what happens here. Well,
Speaker 1: that is where we're going to leave things for today.
Speaker 1: What an episode to return to. It was a massive episode.
Speaker 1: Sophie will be absolutely crushed that she was a part
Speaker 1: of this one, because I think she hates Huddle Life
Speaker 1: the most out of all of us. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of hate relationship, isn't it. Yeah, this podcast was recorded
Speaker 1: on the traditional land of the Ghana people of the
Speaker 1: Adelaide Planes. We pay respect to elders past and present
Speaker 1: and if you do enjoy the show, we will be
Speaker 1: dropping a subscriber only episode on Thursday, and please don't
Speaker 1: forget to leave us a review.