The two most popular hashtags linked to the BBC presenter’s allegations have been tweeted nearly 45,000 times since Friday.
Data analyzed by Sky News shows the scale of the discussion around the claims on Twitter and TikTok.
The deluge of posts has raised questions about the effectiveness of privacy and defamation laws in the age of social media, with experts telling Sky News showing a lack of public understanding of the consequences of sharing false statements about individuals online.
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On Friday, The Sun published allegations that the unnamed presenter paid a teenager thousands of pounds for sexually explicit images.
The claim was made by the young man’s mother, who is 20 years old.
Since then, people have frequently used both hashtags when discussing the case online.
One hashtag was tweeted more than 32,700 times on Twitter between July 7 and Tuesday morning, while the other 12,000 times, according to data Sky News collected from social listening platform Talkwalker.
The posts were all from accounts of British nationals.
Content using the same two hashtags has been viewed about 6 million times on TikTok in the past seven days, according to the platform’s own insights dashboard.
Both social media platforms are rife with speculation, with some names being discussed openly.This prompted some BBC presenters to issue publicly deny They are the subject of complaints.
BBC 5 Live presenter Nicky Campbell shared a screenshot of a report to Scotland Yard in what he described as a “harrowing weekend” during which social media users falsely accused him involved in this scandal.
Gary Lineker, Ryland Clark and Jeremy Vine They also refuted online false allegations about them on Twitter.
“I will not stand by and have my name attached to something that has nothing to do with me,” Clark wrote.
Sky News has been monitoring the top names on social media and has analyzed the number of posts mentioning individuals. The names of those who did not make public comments have been removed.
Content mentioning the same keynote speaker has been viewed a total of 9.5 million times on TikTok over the past seven days, meaning that includes content before Friday’s allegations.
Monday, a letter from Lawyers representing the young man rejected the claim According to the BBC, there was nothing “inappropriate or illegal” between the youngster and the unnamed presenter.
The youngster allegedly sent a denial to The Sun on Friday night, but the report was published anyway.
Sky News also surveyed the extent to which the public was searching Google for information about the case.
Three of the top five UK Google searches on Saturday were related to the scandal, totaling more than 600,000 searches.
Searches peaked on Sunday, with ‘BBC presenter’ the number one UK Google search term on Sunday. It has been searched more than a million times.
However, Google search data shows that searches for the names of individual BBC presenters have not surged compared to other popular search periods over the past three months. However, searches for certain names did increase since the report was published.
According to social media expert Matt Navarra, this may be because users turn to social media for answers knowing that searches will only return information already covered by mainstream media.
He told Sky News: “News publishers will be very aware of the risks of naming any individual without substantial evidence and reasons to back it up.”
“Users are aware that, in fact, these kinds of discussions typically identify the person in places like Twitter or TikTok,” he said.
“People are used to this being the best place to find this kind of information, whether it’s true or not.”
He added that he wasn’t surprised by the amount of chatter surrounding the case on Twitter. The emphasis on free speech, combined with layoffs from the platform under current owner Elon Musk, could lead to a scale of potentially defamatory comments and violations of privacy laws, Navarra said.
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Media lawyer Matthew Gill told Sky News that a lack of public understanding of the potentially serious legal consequences of defaming an individual online was also a factor.
“A lot of people think it’s funny, but it could actually have very serious consequences,” he said.
“These allegations are serious allegations that someone was involved and you did damage their reputation and you could be held liable for that damage.”
Gill added that accusations on Twitter have sparked numerous defamation cases in recent years, including food blogger Jack Monroe’s online post about right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins. Her case was prosecuted after false accusations.
“It’s really difficult to manage because we do want to live in a society where people can speak freely and say what they want. But we need to make people more aware of the consequences of defaming someone,” he told Sky News.
Sky News attempted to contact the Twitter press office for this article. The company didn’t respond, but responded by sending an automated email containing the poo emoji, which is currently the default reply to all messages from the press office.
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
this Data and Forensics The team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to delivering transparent news from Sky News. We collect, analyze and visualize data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting techniques with advanced analysis of satellite imagery, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while showing how our journalism works.