Halifax YouTuber ordered to pay Egyptian Diplomat $175,000 for defamation

A Halifax YouTuber has been ordered to pay $175,000 to an Egyptian diplomat for defamatory comments made on her YouTube channel.

The ruling from the Nova Scotia Supreme Court reaffirms that those self-publishing on social media platforms are accountable to the same defamation and liability laws as traditional journalists.

But it also highlights the struggle of the court to limit online harassment when the perpetrator refuses compliances and social media platforms don’t take responsibility for the content they are allowing to be published.

“The defamatory statements have been published and reposted many times on the Internet and are available for anyone in the world to view,” reads justice Gail Gatchalian’s decision.

“The Internet has the extraordinary capacity to replicate the defamatory messages. The defamatory statements, then, have tremendous power to harm (the diplomat’s) reputation.”

Nermine Adel Kalil, a former Egyptian national who is now a Canadian citizen living in Halifax, had a YouTube channel with more than 100,000 subscribers.

Kalil used the channel to accuse the Egyptian diplomat (who the Chronicle Herald is not naming as the comments are defamatory) of adultery in crude and explicit language.

After receiving notice last November that she was being sued for her comments made in Arabic on the YouTube channel, Kalil made more videos in which she made repeated explicit sexual allegations regarding the diplomat.

Kalil also implied violence, stating that she will “smack (the diplomat) down a la levant and Maghreb” and saying “I’m still going to hang you. Just wait.”

Kalil represented herself at the court hearing and did not debate the content of her online statements.

The defamatory statements have continued.

She submitted a seven-page document to the court with wide-ranging accusations involving the son of the Egyptian president, a plot by Egyptian and Canadian Intelligence to silence her and other statements that appear unrelated to the defamation suit.

Justice Gatchalian accepted the diplomat’s statement that she had never met Kalil prior to the online harassment.

“I find that an award of $100,000 in general damages is an appropriate reflection of the harm done to (the diplomat), taking into account (the diplomat’s) blameless conduct, her position and standing, the malicious and hateful nature of the defamation, the ubiquitous publication of the false statements, the lack of a retraction or apology from Ms. Khalil, and Ms. Khalil’s continued campaign of increasingly harmful defamation and threats of physical violence in the face of this legal proceeding,” reads the decision.

A further $50,000 was tacked on for aggravating damages, noting the emotional toll of the harassment and the ability for it to affect a woman’s career and her physical safety in a conservative culture.

Gatchalian added another $25,000 in punitive damages to the total.

“Ms. Khalil’s conduct departs markedly from ordinary standards of decency and is malicious, oppressive and high-handed, and offends the Court’s sense of decency. In my view, it requires punishment,” reads Gatchalian’s decision.

The $175,000 judgement comes with an order that Kalil take “all reasonable steps” to erase her comments from the internet and to never post online about the diplomat again.

Kalil, meanwhile, informed the court of her intention to not stop making online comments and Gatchalian herself found it unlikely that the diplomat would be able to collect the financial award.