Monroe v Hopkins

The meaning of a tweet is assessed objectively through the eyes of the ordinary reasonable reader. The court must adopt an impressionistic approach suited to the conversational and abbreviated nature of Twitter, while considering the tweet as a whole and its relevant context. External Twitter material is contextual only where it is sufficiently closely connected that it was likely to be in the reader’s view or mind.

An imputation that a person condoned criminal vandalism of a war memorial is defamatory. Under Defamation Act 2013, serious harm to reputation is a factual threshold which may be inferred from the gravity and scale of publication without direct evidence from readers.

Monroe v Hopkins was a first-instance libel claim concerning two tweets sent by the defendant about the claimant. The first tweet alleged that the claimant had scrawled on memorials and vandalised the memory of those who fought for her freedom. The second, posted after the first had been deleted, compared the claimant unfavourably with another journalist who had publicly expressed approval of graffiti on a women’s war memorial.

The defendant denied that the tweets bore the pleaded meanings, denied that they were defamatory, and contended that the claimant had not proved serious harm under section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013. The principal issues were the meanings of the tweets, their defamatory tendency, the scale of publication, and whether serious harm to reputation had been proved.

1. Judgment was entered for the claimant. The first tweet did not convey the literal allegation that the claimant had personally vandalised a memorial. Read by the ordinary reasonable reader in its proper Twitter context, it meant that she condoned and approved of scrawling on war memorials and vandalising monuments commemorating those who fought for her freedom.

2. The court applied the ordinary-meaning principles in Jeynes v News Magazines Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 130. A tweet should not be subjected to elaborate textual analysis. It must nevertheless be read as a whole, in its mode of publication, and against relevant contextual material. A hyperlink and matters of general knowledge may form part of the tweet’s context. Other Twitter material is contextual only if sufficiently closely connected in time, content or otherwise that it was likely to have been in the representative reader’s view or mind. A defendant relying on such contextual material should clearly plead the case.

3. The second tweet bore the pleaded innuendo meaning for readers aware of the relevant earlier tweets and publicity. It conveyed that the claimant condoned and approved the obscene graffiti vandalism of the women’s war memorial during an anti-government protest. Although it acknowledged that the defendant had confused the claimant with the other journalist when sending the first tweet, it defiantly asserted that the claimant was no better.

4. Both meanings were defamatory at common law. Criminal vandalism of a public monument is socially harmful conduct which right-thinking people generally would deplore. The particular imputation concerned approval of vandalism of a war memorial, an act contrary to shared social values. The fact that the vandalism expressed a political view did not make its alleged approval non-defamatory.

5. The serious-harm requirement in section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013 was met. The first tweet had a readership comfortably in five figures, assessed at about 20,000, and the second had substantial publication. The gravity of the allegations, their publication, and evidence of resulting abuse justified the inference that the claimant’s reputation had suffered serious, though not grave, harm. Direct evidence that individual readers believed the allegations was unnecessary.

6. The claimant was awarded £24,000 damages: £16,000 for the first tweet and £8,000 for the second. The award reflected serious reputational harm, substantial distress, and aggravation caused by the defendant’s conduct. An injunction was refused because there was no evidence of a threat or risk of repetition.

not stated in the judgment.