Loose lips sink ships: Defamation by emoji?

• Published date: 01 October 2020
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Media, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment, Libel & Defamation, Social Media
• Law Firm: McCullough Robertson
• Author: Mr Guy Humble and Tim Case

Burrows v Houda [2020] NSWDC 485

Last month, the District Court of New South Wales determined that the 'zipper-face' emoji was capable of conveying a defamatory meaning when used in a Twitter post.

The interlocutory decision was made in the context of defamation proceedings commenced by Ms Zali Burrows against Mr Adam Houda in relation to two Twitter posts published by Mr Houda on 28 July 2019 and 27 May 2020. Mr Houda posted a link to a Sydney Morning Herald article via his Twitter account which reported upon a case in which a judge had allegedly referred Ms Burrows (a solicitor) for possible disciplinary action. The relevant posts by Mr Houda were helpfully annexed to the decision of Her Honour Judge Gibson and a link to the decision is provided below. Of particular significance was the second tweet, published by Mr Houda on 27 May 2020. In response to the article link published by Mr Houda, a third party Twitter user commented:

'July 2019 story. But what happened to her since?'

Mr Houda responded to the third-party comment with the emoji known as the 'zipper-face' emoji (reproduced below) (Emoji). Ms Burrows alleged that Mr Houda's Twitter post (and in particular, the use of the Emoji) conveyed a number of different defamatory imputations (meanings) about her, including that:

(a) she had been disciplined by the lawyers professional...