Can I claim against a website forum for personal injury (stress & suffering)?

[pennylane]

Hi there, I'm new here. I have been subjected to what I feel has been horrendous harassment on another forum run by a well-known website. I hope that the people here are understanding and sympathetic towards people who are the victims of online bullying and that I won't be ridiculed for my query here.

To try and summarise it, I had a terrible experience on the forums where I was subjected to bullying and harassment and was then banned. I still don't know why I was banned as they didn't give me an explanation, but after appealing I was reinstated (with a final warning - for what?!) and based on the fact that a couple of long-time members were permanently banned I figure it may have had something to do with them abusing their account privileges to have me banned because they didn't like me. Anyway, the forum team basically told me to not respond and to just report posts and users and they would deal with it. For the next week or so I made probably over 100 reports and the posts were removed but the bullying continued and it was obvious that no action was being taken against the perpetrators. Things came to a head and I told the forum team it was getting a bit much and I had mental health problems and to please do something, but still nothing happened and I snapped when this girl who had previously been nice to me made a snarky remark to me and shared some private information I shared with her and made it public and I sent her a private message telling her in no uncertain terms that I was not going to stand for it and that I'd report her if she did it again. Within a few hours of sending the message I was banned again. I could not believe that I was expected to endure all that harassment on a daily basis and sending ONE message got me banned. I also tried contacting them and the company via Twitter and email and sent so many and it took them 2 days to let me know I had been banned permanently due to my posts and behaviour towards other members. None of my posts were offensive and I really felt devastated that the forum was essentially punishing the victim for standing up to bullies.

So my question is, can I make a claim for stress and suffering in the small claims court against the website/forum? I know that they can't be held liable for what people post, but in this situation they had been made aware on multiple occasions of the conduct of a few of the members and did nothing, yet after one "offence" from me I got banned. The forum knew I had mental health problems and they say they will take action against any members that break the rules, but it seems quite obvious that there is favouritism going on if I can be banned within hours of sending one message when others who have been harassing me for at least 2 weeks are free to carry on as normal. Banning me has added to the stress and caused me significant distress on top of the bullying and I want the forum to be held accountable because they knew of the issue and didn't do anything to stop it.

Do I have any chance of winning a case without getting a solicitor involved? And can I make this type of claim in the small claims court?

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Amethyst]

Morning Penny, No one will ridicule you. Obviously we have quite a bit of experience with forums, and this kind of behaviour, and sadly, sometimes the only way to deal with such things is to just move on. Bullys feed off responses and if the forum choses to have members on there that treat people poorly then it is their loss when others don't stick around xxx If it is simply sniping at your posts and being generally bitchy then there's likely not a lot legally. The forum don't have a duty of care over you - there are of course moves to force social media platforms to have some level of duty of care for children but that's a long way off and wouldn't really cover your situation.
And of course a misconceived claim brought in the courts against the forum owners could simply backfire and cause you further anxiety.
Has the bullying/harrassment happened outside of the forum ? Any personal direct threats ?
Has there been any defamatory comments made against/about you ?

Sharon
xx

[pennylane]

Hi Amethyst, thank you for your response and kind words. I understand that most people will feel the best action is just to move on, I just feel I've been treated very unfairly by the forum and they've caused me undue stress by failing to tackle the problem. This website ans forum pride themselves on allegedly being a friendly and welcoming forum and this is why I feel so strongly about it. I know this behaviour can be common on forums, but when you find one that says "this is a forum where you can ask questions and won't be ridiculed or judged with nasty comments" then it really makes you angry when they take no action against people doing this very thing and end up banning me for sending one message to another member asking them to leave me alone essentially. You're right it's not a forum that is a nice place to be, but I was getting something out of offering help to people and a friendly ear just to have these people come along and ruin it for everyone. Some of the posts were just being bitchy, others were accusing me of having multiple AE's and ridiculing me by telling me my opinions were unwanted etc. Then it became a bit weirder and a bit more alarming - one person posted openly that I had PM'd them when I hadn't ever had contact with them, and when I said I hadn't sent "anyone" a PM others jumped in almost stalking me, saying I sent PMs regularly and that I was sending one right then and others saying they could see I was "sending forum feedback" which meant reporting. I reported all of this and the forum still allowed the members to continue to post on the site and I told them that it was getting a bit much for me. I've also made a police report because according to the communications act 2003, it says that this type of behaviour is a punishable offense. The bullying hasn't continued off the forum because they don't have any contact details of mine but I'm sure it would've if they had.

As for defamatory comments, I would consider some of the things said to be defamatory yes. A thread was started up shortly after I was banned which didn't mention me by name but was obviously about me. The poster said that someone on the forum was sending multiple users intimidating and abusive messages and that ignoring them hadn't worked - I had sent her ONE message that I deemed to be firm but not offensive and I had asked HER to refrain from interacting with me, so clearly I wasn't planning on contacting her again. Another person said she'd received messages of a similar nature from me. Still others were saying I had multiple AE's and would be back soon, another divulged private information I'd said to them in a message to them about being bullied and said the situation was of my own doing. Others were commenting on how I'd reported them and had their posts removed and shouldn't be allowed to get away with it, while another said I was "sad" for "getting my jollies" out of reporting people. I reported the thread and it was left on the site for 2 days before being removed but I still have screenshots. I took screenshots of another thread that was started by a new user asking for help with a faulty item and 2 users accused the user of being me (mentioned me by name) and the next day the thread was deleted and the user was banned!!

I don't know about a duty of care, but it seems clear to me that the forum/website did not take the steps necessary to put an end to the bullying and caused me further distress by banning me for one "offense", when I had been more friendly and helpful to people asking for help than any of them combined. I saw someone on Twitter mention the same thing happened to them on the forum and the forum team responded to him on Twitter saying, "We take allegations of bullying very seriously". They also tell people to be sensitive as they may be talking to someone with mental health issues and yet this is how they treat a victim of bullying on their own site. Is there no way they can be held accountable for causing me stress and suffering? I just don't want them to get away with this...lying to the public about what a great, friendly and welcoming site they are but the truth is so far from this.