Facebook libel costs £22,000

Iain Thomson | Jul 25, 2008 8:00 AM

A freelance photographer is facing a £22,000 bill after setting up a fake Facebook page that libelled a former classmate.

Grant Raphael, a freelance photographer, set up a Facebook page in the name of former school friend Mathew Firsht and posted false information about his sexual and political preferences.

He also set up another page for Firsht’s television company, the latter entitled "Has Mathew Firsht lied to you?"

The judge found that Raphael’s claim that the pages had been set up by gatecrashers at a party he had held to be “utterly far-fetched.”

He awarded Firsht £15,000 in damages and £2,000 for breach of privacy and gave his company £5,000 for libel.

"The significance of this case is that it shows that what you post is not harmless, but has consequences," media lawyer, Jo Sanders, of Harbottle & Lewis, told the BBC.

"Sat at home or school or in the office, it's easy to think of social networking sites as harmless fun, that it's like chatting with friends, and that things posted there are either a joke or just a mischievous way of causing embarrassment. This ruling puts an end to that."

"The golden rule should be to only put up information or images you are happy for everyone to see and are happy to put your name to," she added.

The two men had been childhood friends but fell out six years ago. The judge said that jealousy had probably inspired the Facebook page creation.