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A British woman has won a High Court order for Facebook to reveal the IP addresses of trolls that harassed her on the social media website.
Nicola Brookes won the case, which is the first of its kind in the UK, after she was constantly targeted and abused because she left a supportive comment on the page of an X Factor contestant.
The abuse involved talking about her appearance, age and illness. It then lead on to a series of death threats and the creation of fake profiles in Brookes’ name, which the trolls used to send explicit messages to young girls.
The order that Facebook will receive is know as a Norwich Pharmacal order, which means the site will have to hand over documents or information about the abusers’ IPs. Brookes will then decide whether to get a further court order to have the identities of the people linked to those IP addresses revealed.
A statement from Facebook said: “There is no place for harassment on Facebook, but unfortunately a small minority of malicious individuals exist online, just as they do offline. We respect our legal obligations and work with law enforcement to ensure that such people are brought to justice.”
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