KB-2023-003483 - [2025] EWHC 1799 (KB)

On 20 March 2023, having been alerted to the defamatory posts by C1, C4 telephoned D1. Her evidence was that during the telephone call he confirmed that “he published the posts and promised to delete the posts”: see C4’s witness statement dated 17 September 2023 at [23].

On 21 March 2023 at 10.18 am, the Claimants complained to D3 about 14 of the posts/links via email and the feedback section of the website. The Claimants also sought information relating to the publisher of those posts. At 9.47 pm that day, D3 replied confirming that the posts had been deleted: Lin 2, at [14(b)].

On 24 March 2023, 26 March 2023, 3 April 2023 and 11 April 2023, the Claimants sent several further deletion requests to D3, as a result of which D3 deleted certain further posts. On 12 April 2023, the Claimants emailed to thank D3: Lin 2, at [14(b)-(c)].

On 27 April 2023 the Claimants served a notice of complaint for the purposes of s.5 of the Defamation Act 2013 (“the 2013 Act”) and the relevant regulations (the Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations 2013). Mr Callus submitted that the court could proceed on the assumption that the notice of complaint was valid and that D3 had not replied to this notice in accordance with the regulations. I did so.

On 5 May 2023, the Claimants sent a pre-action letter to D3 complaining about 14 posts. However, Mr Lin explained that the letter did not include the “URLs” (Uniform Resource Locators or web addresses) necessary for D3 to effect deletions: Lin 2 at [16]. The Claimants again asked for information relating to the publisher of the posts.

On 8 May 2023, D3 asked the Claimants to send the URLs for the posts they thought were defamatory, saying that the file the Claimants had attached could not be downloaded. D3 explained that its privacy policy did not allow it to provide user information without a court order. It nevertheless said that if the Claimants provided the URLs, it would delete the posts. Given the number of duplicated requests for deletions it had received from the Claimants, D3 understood that these 14 posts were the same as those referred to previously by the Claimants which had already been deleted: Lin 2 at [16].