Latest news with #BastianDurward
Daily Mail
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Tattle Life trolls called me fat and ugly - then they went after my husband and daughter and found out where I lived
A victim of vile abuse on gossip site Tattle Life has opened up on a bullying experience which left her 'sick to the core' after trolls went after her daughter, her husband and even found out where she lived. Online health influencer Dani Kumrou first ventured onto the online forum in 2022 despite her best friend's very firm warning: 'Don't look at it.' By logging on, she joined 12 million monthly visitors on a site initially created to expose disingenuous social media stars, but which rapidly descended into a sea of hatred aimed at everyone from Stacey Solomon to 'mummy bloggers' with small followings. She instantly regretted it, as she was bombarded by thousands of pre-existing nasty messages, before the 'personal attack' accelerated when her abusers realised she was reading their words. After a miserable ordeal spanning three years, the social media personality is finally ready to spill Tattle's secrets, following the unmasking of the page's British 'business owner' Sebastian Bond, who goes by the alias Bastian Durward, this week. Ms Kumrou told MailOnline: 'All I did was Google"Tattle Life" and my name and then I saw all this stuff come up. 'It made me feel sick to the core. I'd never read anything like it in my life. I couldn't believe it. It really shook me up. 'Most of the stuff was about my appearance. They would say I was fat and ugly, and talk about the way I speak, the way I dress, it really was a personal attack.' A self-described 'confident person', the influencer weathered this initial spate of nastiness. But when trolls brought her family into their campaign of hatred, Ms Kumrou was left reeling. 'I then read stuff about my daughter, who is now 14. My husband was also ridiculed on there. 'It's almost like obsession. I would look at it every day, and it did really affect me. I'm a very confident person. I don't really get knocked by things like that, but when it's that personal and it's about you every day you start to question, "is what I'm doing right? Do I even want to work online anymore?" 'I was determined not to let these people take me off of the internet. When it was about me, a lot of it was nonsense, but when they start talking about your family and your children, it gets a little bit more personal.' Amid this nightmare period of online abuse and vitriole, Ms Kumrou was occupied with one question: 'Why her?' An influencer working for a health company with a healthy, but fairly modest, follower count in the tens of thousands, she wasn't exactly a traditional target for a pitchfork-wielding mob. 'I do share bits of my life online but I'm not a celebrity,' she said. 'So I couldn't understand why they were so fascinated with me. 'I didn't understand at first, the concept of anonymous posting and the fake profile. 'A lot of the people writing about me actually had me as their profile picture. But they would screenshot a picture, if I was on a live stream or something that looked really unattractive, that made me look like I had 10 chins. 'Then they would have these made up names, so I couldn't work out who they were, why they had my profile picture, and then I looked into it and realised, these were anonymous people posting about people and tearing them apart.' With wave after wave of nasty remarks being plastered across the site for all to see, Ms Kumrou took comfort from the fact that she still maintained a modicum of privacy. But the mob soon took a torch to this too, finding out where she lived and where she was moving to. 'They put up my address. Even though I share my life online, I've always been quite careful with not tagging myself in exact locations. When I'm at home, I tag myself in a different city because I'm aware that I work online and you have to be careful. 'And they've always been obsessed with where I live. Then, when we put our house for sale, they found it on Rightmove, and publicly posted the Rightmove with my address on there. 'That's when I thought, "You know what? Enough is enough." That's when it really upset me, because it is scary. Why do they want to know where I live? 'Then I did a public post on my social media saying I wouldn't be sharing my moving journey. 'We found a property that we thought that we were going to move into, and all I did online was send a picture from the balcony. 'There was no picture of the house online but somehow they found it and this is how your brain starts thinking, "Oh, it must be someone I know. It must be someone that I've told about this house that I'm looking at." 'You start to suspect everyone so it really does affect your relationships and your friendships, because you don't know who you can and can't trust. 'I've blocked so many people off my social media who are probably innocent. It really does damage your mental health.' Last week, restrictions on identifying Bond were lifted, two years after Neil and Donna Sands were awarded £300,000 at the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland after successfully suing him for 'defamation and harassment' in posts on the site. He was also ordered to pay the pair's legal costs, with 'further costs and third-party compliance expenses' amounting to £1.8 million. The thread about the Sands was removed in May, but thousands and thousands of others remain. Checking back in on the site after hearing of Bond's unmasking, Ms Kumrou was surprised to see that comments about her had been taken down. 'You can't actually access my thread anymore,' she said. 'So when you try to look, it says login. 'I don't know whether they're taking them down or whether they're making them private.' The influencer has worked hard to wean herself off Tattle, but the effects of three years of persistent online abuse can still be felt. She added: 'I put blockers on my phone which stopped me from doing it because it can become obsessive and can completely take over your life. 'It has such an effect on you that everything you do is different, even if you think that it doesn't bother you. 'It's always in your subconscious. It's always in the back of your mind. My thread was very active, it wasn't once a week - it was hour by hour.' Ms Kumrou was one of thousands of victims to welcome the unmasking of Bond last week, but the social media personality is now calling for Tattle to be pulled down entirely. 'It's brilliant what they've done,' she said. 'I've joined petitions before because it;s such an unhealthy website it's so horrible. 'I think it's very good that people are joining forces and talking about it. 'I thought it would be something I never spoke about. You almost don't want to tell people you're being talked about in this way. 'The names they called an innocent child...I would never want my daughter to see it. 'It needs to go. In a world with so many people suffering with mental health and committing needs to go.' For nearly a decade, since the site was set up in 2017, no one knew who ran Tattle Life, with the site's operator going under the fake name Helen McDougal. Many will be surprised to learn the creator is in fact a man, who is the author and foodie behind plant-based recipe Instagram page Nest and Glow, which boasts 135,000 followers. For the past eight years, the vegan cookbook author has secretly presided over the site, which makes an estimated £276,770 in Google Ad revenue every six months, according to figures from 2021. The Sands, however, have become the first to fight back against the site and win. Donna, who runs fashion label Sylkie along with other brands, and Neil, an AI founder, said they found a 45-page thread about them and reached out to the site operators in 2021 asking them to take down the commentary 'or face legal action'. In 2023, they initiated the process. Neil and Donna got £150,000 each in damages, and the Court granted an injunctive relief to prevent Tattle Life from posting about the couple again. Awarding damages to the couple in December 2023, Mr Justice McAlinden hit out at Tattle Life, stating there was 'clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit'. 'It is the exercise of extreme cynicism - the calculated exercise of extreme cynicism,' he continued. 'Which in reality constitutes behaviour solely aimed at making profit out of people's misery. People facilitating this are making money out of it… protecting their income streams by protecting the identity of the individual posters.' At court last week, reporting restrictions which prevented Bond being named were lifted. He has also had his assets frozen and must pay a cessation figure of £1,077,173 to have this order lifted. It's likely that deeply popular Tattle Life racked up a decent amount of money for Bond. As reported by The Guardian in 2021, the blog had 43.2 million visits in just six months that year. The figures are still in the millions this year. In May, as per Similarweb, there were 11.5 million visits on the site, mostly from British users. It is also understood that Bond uses different names online - one of them being Bastian Durward - and owns a number of businesses across the world. Two of them, Mr Justice Colton confirmed, include UK-registered Yuzu Zest Limited and Hong Kong-registered Kumquat Tree Limited. According to Companies House information, the former is currently in liquidation but alleged to offer 'media representation services'. At a hearing last Thursday, the court saw a letter from Bond's legal team, sent to one of the plaintiffs, claiming he was the Tattle Life founder but was 'unaware of any legal proceedings against him'. The Sands legal representatives disputed that he was unaware. An initial glimpse at Bond's Nest and Glow page won't rouse suspicions that its founder is running a social media platform that has become known for its 'cruel' remarks. Aesthetic photos of mango chia seed pots and sweet potato snacks dominate the feed, along with instructions for recipes. An Amazon author page for his cookbook - being flogged for £20 online - claims that 'Bastian' has a 'passion for sharing healthy recipes to inspire everyone to eat natural food full of nutrients and vitamins'. 'I've been vegan for over 30 years and on a nutrient-dense plant-based healthy diet for 15 of those,' he added. 'In 2015 I decided to leave my office job in order to follow my passions. This resulted in setting up the site Nest and Glow where I share healthy recipes and other natural lifestyle content.' However, the Irish couple who unmasked him as Tattle Life, have shared the names of his aliases on their social media - stating he was masking under the false name as a site moderator, Helen McDougal. 'Dear Friends,' Neil and Donna shared in an Instagram statement this weekend. 'As a couple we never wanted or expected to undertake this work, however when we discovered the hate site we were forced to take action. 'We are very grateful for your support, and hope that this serves as a reminder to those who want to attack others from behind a screen - that the internet is not an anonymous place. 'We will share more soon, but for today, we hope that this news will provide some peace to those affected by online hate and harassment, and that the internet can be a safer space for us all. Onward.' Tattle Life states on its site that it has a 'zero-tolerance policy to any content that is abusive, hateful, harmful and a team of moderators online 24/7 to remove any content that breaks our strict rules - often in minutes'. However, it adds: 'Influencer marketing is insidious [and] revolves around people that occupy the space between celebrity and friend to stealthy sell when in reality it's a parasocial relationship. 'It's an important part of a healthy, free and fair society for members of the public to have an opinion on those in a position of power and influence; that is why Tattle exists. 'We allow people to express their views on businesses away from an influencers feed on a site where they would have to go out of their way to read, this is not trolling.' Neil Sands also said: 'We undertook this case not just for ourselves but for the many people who have suffered serious personal and professional harm through anonymous online attacks on this and other websites. 'We believe in free speech, but not consequence-free speech – particularly where it is intended to, and succeeds in, causing real-world damage to people's lives, livelihoods and mental health. We were in the fortunate position to be able to take the fight to these faceless operators, and it took a lot of time, effort and expense.' A surprising amount of charged criticism has circulated on the message boards, hitting out at various famous people. In one instance, Alice Evans - a Hollywood actress who split from husband Ioan Gruffudd - took to social media in the initial aftermath of their separation, during which time she discovered he was having an affair and documented her anguish. 'She is full of s***. It's kinda sad she felt she has to make this stuff up for attention and likes,' one tattler slammed. Another stated: 'She was controlling him. A good mother would simply not be using her children to get back at her ex whether he cheated on her or not.' Elsewhere, Katie Price was labelled a 'drugged up p*** artist'. Countless celebrities have been subject to vitriol at the hands of vicious comment threads - but those with smaller online presences are also at risk. Number one on the hit list at one point was Mrs Hinch, who has made a fortune from posting cleaning videos on Instagram. Tens of thousands of comments raged that she and her husband are a 'deluded pair of t***s'. Solomon, an avid Instagrammer who posts regular updates of her home renovations, marriage and children was also torn apart for her 'filthy kids, scruffy hair, outfits from Build A Bear'. One tribe seems to draw particular malice: so-called mumfluencers, Instagram influencers who make their trade in sharing the exploits of themselves and their children online. In 2023, former mummy blogger Clemmie Hooper was handed a caution order for a period of one-year following a midwifery misconduct hearing - four years after she engaged in trolling other influencers on a gossip forum. The mother-of-four from Kent, once boasted 700,000 followers on Instagram and had partnered with brands such as Mothercare and Boden on sponsored posts. But in 2019, Hooper - who worked part-time as a midwife - came off social media after her account on Tattle Life was exposed. Among the posts made under the Alice in Wanderlust psuedonym, was one accusing black mummy blogger Candice Brathwaite of social climbing, being 'aggressive' and using her 'race as a weapon'. Just two months before, Hooper had invited Ms Brathwaite onto her podcast to discuss her traumatic birth experience and how she developed life-threatening sepsis following an emergency C-section. Following the Fitness To Practise Committee Substantive Hearing with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which started on February 28 of that year, the panel's decision was announced on March 7. Earlier in the hearing, Hooper had admitted to three of the charges facing her - that she made the comments in question, and that they had been intended to 'undermine or humiliate' their target. She also accepted that elements of the posts were 'racially offensive and/or discriminatory', but maintains that she was unaware of this offence at the time. The panel took into account some mitigating factors, including Hooper's health at the time of making the posts, which was said to have clouded her objectivity. Speaking to Grazia in 2021, Candice Brathwaite, said it had been 'painful' reading the posts on Tattle.
Daily Mail
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE 'King of Trolls' faces avalanche of legal claims: Tattle Life creator will be served with raft of lawsuits from 'defamed' social media users, experts say after he was sued by 'harassed' couple
The creator of Tattle Life could face a raft of new lawsuits from stars defamed on his website after he was unmasked as the King of Trolls, experts told MailOnline today. Vegan influencer Sebastian Bond, 43, was exposed after a couple won a £300,000 libel payout over vile claims posted about them on the so-called 'trolls' paradise', which he quietly founded eight years ago. Tattle Life became an unchecked breeding ground for bullying, 'doxxing' and outright lies. Targets of trolling on the site have ranged from 'traditional' celebrities such as Victoria and David Beckham, and TV presenter Stacey Solomon, to so-called 'influencers' such as Molly-Mae Hague, down to 'mummy bloggers' with tiny followings. Even former Great British Bake-Off judge and national treasure Mary Berry is the subject of at least one thread, with users branding her 'bitchy, patronising and cold'. After a two-year legal battle, Northern Ireland 's High Court awarded Neil and Donna Sands damages for defamation and harassment after hearing they were the target of a 45-page thread. Persephone Bridgman Baker, a partner at Carter-Ruck, has suggested that the so-called King of the Trolls, Sebastian Bond, could now face a flurry of new court cases. He also uses the alias Bastian Durward. She told MailOnline: 'The unmasking of Sebastian Bond is a legal milestone for the content creators, influencers and celebrities who have been persistently harassed on the toxic website Tattle Life. Bond has admitted his role as the website founder, and his identification may lead to claims by others named on the site. 'There is the potential for claims in defamation, misuse of private information and harassment against individuals who have posted on the website, as well as against Bond as the operator if certain additional requirements are met, which could result in damages awards'. The site, which attracts 12 million visitors a month, is supposedly aimed at exposing disingenuous influencers, but it quickly became a paradise for trolls to hurl abuse at them Amber Melville Brown, Global Head of Media and Reputation at Withers, said the case shows that trolls can no longer 'hide behind a Harry Potter magic invisibility cloak, especially where we are publicly commenting on and criticizing others or responsible for it'. She said: 'There are numerous hurdles for claimants in bringing legal actions for defamation or harassment against individual aggressors, let alone the platforms which host offensive material and the owners of those platforms. But unmasking an otherwise anonymous part of the puzzle gets the claimant over one of the necessary hurdles when it comes to identifying, filing against and serving that party'. Gerard Cukier, a partner at Keystone Law, said that it may be trickier to chase down the King of the Trolls due to the way he has set up his businesses around the world. 'Although Bond appears to be UK based, the publishers are two Hong Kong based companies, which adds to the difficulties', he said. 'In Northern Ireland, as in England, there is a one-year time limit to bring proceedings for defamation. That period is unlikely to be extended by the court for the reason that the publisher of the trolling allegations and comments has now been identified. Anyone who has suffered the same treatment within the last year might well now wish to have a go now that he's been identified. 'There is no such time limit for claims in harassment but it would be necessary to show that there is a continuous and continuing pattern of harassment for such a claim to be made'. It came as the couple who unmasked Sebastian Bond as the creator of Tattle Life would 'shake with fear' every time they woke up and checked their phones. Neil and Donna today appeared on Good Morning Britain and told hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley about the 'stalking' and 'horrendous feeling' of the 'daily abuse'. Donna, who runs fashion label Sylkie along with other brands and has a 'modest' 20,000 followers, said: 'It impacted me on so many different levels. 'Every morning I would wake up and I would think "what have they said now in the last 7 hours" when I would turn on my phone. My body would actually just shake.' In an effort to 'overcome' it all, she joined Trinity College to do an MBA but when her fellow professionals in class asked her what her business was called she didn't want to tell them. 'Everyone is normally proud of their business and able to say it and the first thing I thought when I started an MBA was "they're all going to google me and this thread will come up",' she said. Her husband Neil, an AI founder, explained how they found 'defamatory details' of their businesses 'that were completely untrue'. The couple said the defamatory comments about their enterprises 'completely misrepresented' everything they do and accused Donna of selling 'poor quality' clothes and 'over-representing' her prices. Neil said the trolls even went down to the 'molecular level' of finding information about their finances on Companies House and posting them on the site. He said: 'It got more menacing overtime and eventually it got into stalking. There was lots of commentary about where we were, who we were in restaurants with, "we are watching you" stuff like that.' But the online stalkers soon turned to in person harassment with trolls telling the couple 'we we can see you in this restaurant, we are looking at you right now'. Obsessive 'Tattlers' even started driving back and fourth past their home and posted details of their house on Tattle Life threads dedicated to abusing them. Donna, revealed how she went from 'someone who has stood on the shop floor since I was 16 years of age meeting people all the time' to being 'completely withdrawn'. 'It made me doubt what people were thinking of me,' she said, adding that Bond 'needed to be made accountable' for the impact it had on them and others. The pair explained many other people who were victimised by cruel posts and threads have attempted to take legal action in the past but were unsuccessful. Neil said: 'We didn't do it for us , we never wanted to undertake this work. 'I'm a technologist by trade and I think folks did try. This gentleman would open his inbox and see very many solicitors letters, I'm sure, from different entities that were affected by the site. 'But you need both a legal fortitude to pursue something like this and also a technical understanding of how they are built and thankfully some of my friends who worked in Silicon Valley helped with the unpacking of who was behind the site.' Donna added: 'It's quite amazing because so many people have got to a certain stage in the legal battle and when we undertook it we didn't want to do it but we thought if we could do something, we should. 'My mum said, "Donna, why are the police not stepping in at this stage?".' They are 'just delighted that the judge took it so seriously', with Donna adding: 'It's been a really difficult road and there has been so many twists and turns in the case to get where we are today.' She explained how the 45 pages of abuse which were presented to the High Court 'wasn't that much' in the context of the whole site. 'That it actually probably one of the smallest threads on there. Other people have huge amounts, it reaches people all across the world from Australia to America and even closer to home.' Donna revealed how popular British influencer Mrs Hinch reached out to her on the weekend and told the couple how she had been 'actively targeted' on Tattle Life. She added there may be a lot of 'big personalities' who have been abused on the gossip site but highlighted the 'small business owners' and lesser known micro-influencers who have also fallen victim. 'I have a modest following of 20,000 which was a community I curated for years,' she said, 'We all thought we were anonymous and that you could write whatever you want, but maybe now we can move forward positively and know that that's not the case.' For nearly a decade, since the site was set up in 2017, no one knew who ran Tattle Life, with the site's operator going under the fake name Helen McDougal. Many will be now surprised to learn the creator is in fact a man, who is the author and foodie behind plant-based recipe Instagram page Nest and Glow, which boasts 135,000 followers. For the past eight years, the vegan cookbook author he has secretly presided over the site, which makes an estimated £276,770 in Google Ad revenue every six months, according to figures from 2021. Donna and Neil found a 45-page thread about them and reached out to the site operators in 2021 asking them to take down the commentary 'or face legal action'. The Irish couple who unmasked him as Tattle Life, have shared the names of his alises on their social media - stating that he was masking under the false name as a site moderator, Helen McDougal In 2023, they initiated the process. Neil and Donna got £150,000 each in damages, and the Court granted an injunctive relief to prevent Tattle Life from posting about the couple again. It was also ordered that the Sands' legal costs be paid, with 'further costs and third-party compliance expenses' amounting to £1.8 million. The thread about them was removed in May this year, but thousands and thousands of others remain. Awarding damages to the couple in December 2023, Mr Justice McAlinden hit out at Tattle Life, stating there was 'clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit'. 'It is the exercise of extreme cynicism - the calculated exercise of extreme cynicism,' he continued. 'Which in reality constitutes behaviour solely aimed at making profit out of people's misery. People facilitating this are making money out of it… protecting their income streams by protecting the identity of the individual posters.' Bond also had his assets frozen and must pay a cessation figure of £1,077,173 to have this order lifted. It's likely that deeply popular Tattle Life racked up a decent amount of money for Bond. As reported by The Guardian in 2021, the blog had 43.2 million visits in just six months of that year. The figures are still in the millions this year. In May, as per Similarweb, there were 11.5 million visits on the site, mostly from British users. It is also understood that Sebastian uses different names online - one of them being Bastian Durward - and owns a number of businesses across the world. Two of them, Mr Justice Colton confirmed, include UK-registered Yuzu Zest Limited and Hong Kong-registered Kumquat Tree Limited. According to Companies House information, the former is currently in liquidation but alleged to offer 'media representation services'. At a hearing last Thursday, the court saw a letter from Sebastian's legal team, sent to one of the plaintiffs, claiming he was the Tattle Life founder but was 'unaware of any legal proceedings against him'. The Sands legal representatives disputed that he was unaware.
Metro
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
I name and shame Tattle gossip trolls - and even tell their bosses
The internet can be a breeding ground for trolls and it's none more so evident than on the infamous online forum Tattle Life. Described as the 'the most hate-filled corner of the web', the site has hit the headlines after its founder was unmasked as plant-based recipe influencer Sebastian Bond, known as Bastian Durward of Nest & Glow. His identity came to light after Neil and Donna Sands, who runs the clothing brand Syklie, sued the website for hosting defamatory commentary about them. They argued that the website has 'profited as a space where users could defame, harass, stalk and attack others online' and were awarded £300,000 by the Northern Ireland High Court last week. Despite many petitions to shut Tattle life down, the site is so popular there is even a waitlist to join. A delve into its pages quickly unearths thousands of vicious threads posted by an army of devoted users. 'What a rough-looking, ugly, greasy bleep. Look at that manky tan line near her greasy hairline,' one commenter, called officially2020, said in a post about a reality star. Another, who goes under the name of teshhco-tart, described a famous cleaning influencer as 'the most low energy, uncreative, ungrateful, lazy, ugly and unhygienic hating witch there is!'. There's also a thread all about how ugly the children of one TV presenter are. Tattle Life rules state a zero-tolerance policy to any content that is abusive, hateful or harmful – but it's clear many users say whatever they want about anyone they want without any fear of accountability. Under the cloak of anonymity that the site offers, some commentators must have felt untouchable. That was, until recently. Lawsuits aside, there's a wave of Instagram accounts seeking to expose the trolls that stalk the site's pages in the same manner over the last few years. One is called Tattlers_Unmasked, a private account with over 38,000 followers, which sporadically reveals the people they say are behind the hurtful comments on Tattle Life. Those being exposed come from all walks of life, from charity workers to retail assistants, and not only are their names and pictures posted, but workplaces are tagged and LinkedIn profiles are screengrabbed. After 'outing' one troll, the account declared: 'I hope now she knows what it feels like to be scrutinised.' Speaking exclusively to Metro, the woman behind Tattle Unmasked says that she decided to reveal the identity of the 'trolls' posting on the site because 'no one else is standing up for the people who have threads'. 'They just have to take it,' explains Michelle, who has asked to go under a pseudonym to protect her own identity. 'Tattlers take it upon themselves to contact brands, contact the press, report influencers to the RSPCA, Social Services and anyone else they can report people to. What gives them the right to do that? Unmasking them is my way of clapping back for the influencers. 'Having spoken to many people who have threads, it is not knowing what their tattlers look like that is the most frightening. They could be anyone. Tattlers_Unmasked gives my followers the chance to see for themselves that tattlers are just normal people, like you and me.' Initially called the site first appeared online in 2017 with Helen McDougall named as its originator. 'Helen' is quoted on the forum as saying that the motivation to set up Tattle was due to some influencers 'brazenly breaking the guidelines for adverts' in posts where they were paid to promote brands or products. Yet it's not just a breach of advertising standards that influencers and celebrities are being attacked for. While the site claims to have a team of moderators online 24/7 to remove any content that breaks its strict rules, a search exposes thousands of forums tearing women apart for everything from their looks to their mental health or even their children. While Katie Price, Kate Garraway and Alice Evans are constant subjects of scrutiny, it's not just household celebrities and influencers with millions of followers who can fall victim. Vicky Saynor runs the Bethnal & Bec holiday rental company with her husband Chris and found herself facing 10 days of terrifying trolling back in 2020 when they opened up their properties for survivors of domestic abuse to use as safe housing. 'The abuse felt constant,' she tells Metro. 'We worked with local authorities and social services to ensure everything was above board and posted about our decision on Instagram.' Although the couple never identified the women who sought shelter, someone decided to set up a Tattle thread accusing them of offering her refuge to make themselves look good. 'They said we weren't qualified and were putting the women's lives at risk,' remembers Vicky. 'Someone encouraged others to troll our social accounts, and we started to get 20-30 messages a day on Instagram.'Although she was too scared to view the actual thread on Tattle, Vicky asked a friend to keep an eye on it in case things took a nasty turn. 'They knew our address as we lived near our rental properties and people were threatening to turn up,' she remembers. 'There was so much anger, I was terrified. The abuse lasted for about 10 days before it died down, but it felt like forever. I'm not an influencer with a huge following, I'm just a business owner who tried to do a nice thing during the pandemic.' Tattle famously hit the headlines back in 2019 when prominent influencer Clemmie Hooper, known then as Mother of Daughters, was found to be a troll on the site, attacking fellow blogger Candice Brathwaite. When her identity was outed by internet sleuths, midwife Clemmie confessed to being behind the comments and quit social media. While the scandal not only rocked the world of mummy influencers, it also proved that no one could hide behind the safety of a screen. Michelle insists that no one is outed on her site unless she is '10000% confident' they are the correct person – and she refuses to worry about the repercussions. 'If Tattlers can say the most awful things about people in the name of gossip, then I, like them, have no qualms about doing what I do,' she admits. 'At the end of the day, I am only posting what is available to be viewed by anyone else if they do a deep dive. I just pull it altogether.' Of course, there is the risk that in turn she could be unmasked herself and trolled – especially, as she claims, that she has site owners or moderators following her, although she says it's not a concern. 'I only have one IG account, which is Tattlers_Unmasked, and I have one Facebook account that is not in my name, which is buried and inconspicuous,' Michelle explains. 'There are no photos of me online and I have no digital footprint – anywhere.' Michelle adds that when she unmasks someone, the Tattlers who follow her head over to a thread on Tattle Life, which is dedicated to trying to find out who she is. 'The moderators then spend the next few hours removing all mention of my account,' she says. 'I have taken screen grabs of them telling members 'Do not feed the trolls the oxygen that they crave'. It's quite ironic when you think of it!' Another person who has started outing Tattle Life users is social media influencer Chloe*. Although she does it on a 'less public' level, she adds. As a content creator, she's been the brunt of many Tattle threads. 'It's hard to believe such a vile place exists,' she tells Metro. 'I started on quite a small level, but when my popularity grew, out came the trolls. They would comment on anything and everything and get really personal, literally picking me apart. 'What makes it odd is that these are women not a million miles away from who I am – I even knew one of them on a personal level. But when they thought I wouldn't know who was saying what about me, they let rip. It's wild.' Chloe says it's actually really easy to find out who the people are behind the accounts. 'People leave such a trail of clues without even realising,' she laughs. Is unmasking anonymous online trolls the right approach to dealing with cyberbullying? Yes, it holds them accountable No, it could incite further harmful behaviour There needs to be a better system in place But rather than confront them publicly, she reports them to their workplaces instead. 'I think the fact that people are now exposing those behind these horrible threads is wonderful, but I never wanted to do it with a big song and dance. I just want people to be held accountable in some way, so they realise that their actions have consequences. And when the evidence is presented to your boss it's a pretty damning and serious situation to be in.' Of course, while many will say being exposed is exactly what the trolls deserve, others argue that it's tantamount to online bullying itself. Counsellor Georgina Sturmer believes that outing abusive commentators could lead to further destructive behaviour and that their online abuse is usually always a sign of sadness or insecurity. 'Trolling could be someone's coping mechanism,' she tells Metro. 'That's not to say it's right, but there could be a real risk with unmasking them. This might lead to an outburst of anger, anxiety or panic. 'If someone engages in trolling behaviours, it's usually an indication that they are feeling unhappy or insecure about something,' adds Georgina. 'This might be triggered by the person they are trolling. Some operate in isolation, but often trolls will 'pile in' on another's comment or action. More Trending 'They are drawn in to agree and support each other as it offers them a feeling of validation and a sense of belonging. This is particularly attractive if they are feeling lonely, disconnected or misunderstood in their everyday lives.' However, Michelle, who says that none of her friends, family or colleagues know about her unmasking site – says she has no plans of stopping any time soon. 'My account gains new followers daily,' she says. 'And as long as there are Tattlers to out, the account will remain.' *Name has been changed. A version of this article first appeared in April 2024. MORE: Katie Price shows off new figure in tiny bikini after weight loss and bum job MORE: 'I was given a gun when I turned 12 — teachers said I'd be dead by 25' MORE: Online spells and WitchTok – welcome to the world of modern day witches Your free newsletter guide to the best London has on offer, from drinks deals to restaurant reviews.
