Regina lawyer concerned with anonymous social media posts

A Regina lawyer says the people who operated an Instagram page that posted allegations of sexual misconduct were running a significant risk.

Aaron Fox told Gormley this week that people could anonymously put up posts on the Victims Voices Regina page without administrators checking the accuracy or legitimacy of the allegations. If the accusations aren’t true, legal action is possible against the administrators.

“It’s no defence to say that they don’t know whether it’s true or not, they’ve just passed along what’s on there,” Fox said. “That isn’t going to be a defence for them.”

Fox represents a Regina man who claims he was wrongly accused on the page. Another Regina law firm launched a $1-million lawsuit against the page – which was removed from Instagram due to the legal action – and against Facebook, which operates Instagram.

A second page has replaced it, administered by different people.

Fox said the anonymous nature of the pages is concerning.

“A disgruntled former partner or something like that could put a complaint on there that’s not true,” he said. “A business rival, a political rival, a foreign government who wants to cause disruption in our society – there’s nothing stopping them from putting an anonymous complaint on there about somebody which is completely bogus and causing a great deal of problems not only for that individual but the organization they’re associated with and society in general.

“That’s the scary part of this.”

Fox said the process for those who feel they’ve been defamed on social media pages starts with trying to determine who wrote the post as well as who’s behind its publication.

That means issuing a claim and then a subpoena for Instagram records.

“(Social media platforms) don’t want to get involved in that,” Fox said. “They view themselves more or less as a bulletin board. People post things on there. Their responsibility isn’t to track them down or determine the authenticity, that sort of thing.

“The first step generally is to try and access their information and see what they can provide in terms of identifying who’s responsible for these postings in the first place.”

If the lawyers were to succeed in finding out the identities of the administrators – or if those people were to come forward – legal action could follow.

If it’s proved that the allegation of misconduct is true, the individual named in the post wouldn’t have any recourse. If the accusation is proven to be unfounded, the individual may have grounds for a suit.

“Once somebody who feels they’ve been defamed by something on there identifies who is responsible for that – either who’s operating the site or who has drafted the false statement — they will be personally named and sued,” Fox said.

Fox has another concern about the posts.

He believes the publication of false accusations about sexual assault could end up damaging those that are true.

“When you create a platform where people can create bogus, anonymous complaints without recourse and you lump them all in with some people who have very legitimate complaints, all of the complaints begin to lose credibility and reliability,” he said.

“Really, I think what this is doing is harming people who have legitimate complaints and have every right to pursue those complaints in a variety of ways.”