An influencer in the cycling enthusiast community was sued by a bicycle parts company for defamation after he said on social media that he had a confrontation with one of the owners of the firm.
The posts by Mr Terence Lee, who goes by the online handle Bike Guru, recounted how his decision not to review certain products led to the confrontation, without naming the company, Makericks3D, or the owner.
Makericks3D sued Mr Lee for defamation and malicious falsehood, alleging that his posts on Facebook and Instagram had hurt its reputation among customers and business partners.
The suit was dismissed by a district judge in a written judgment on Oct 13.
District Judge Jonathan Ng concluded that Mr Lee’s posts in January 2023 were not defamatory and did not refer to the company. He rejected the company’s contention that the posts suggested that its products were not of good quality.
The judge said the posts were fundamentally not about the quality of the accessories, and Mr Lee had explained in the posts why he decided not to proceed with the review.
The ordinary reasonable person would understand the posts as Mr Lee recounting the events and setting out his terms for product reviews, said the judge.
The judge noted that this was a dispute arising from the breakdown in the relationship between the business owner, Ms Alice Tan, and Mr Lee. The case is ultimately about an aggrieved individual, yet Ms Tan chose to bring the court action in the company’s name.
“Having made this strategic choice, both Alice and the claimant must now live with the consequences of that choice.
“This includes how certain findings, which might have been open had Alice brought this action in her own name, are now foreclosed,” said the judge.
Mr Lee currently has more than 11,000 followers on Facebook and more than 1,900 followers on Instagram.
In September 2022, he was introduced to Ms Tan, one of the partners of Makericks3D, which makes bicycle accessories and sells them online.
Ms Tan later passed two accessories to Mr Lee for him to do a product review. One product gives a cyclist more space on the handlebar to mount items such as mobile phones, while the other is a spring that prevents hinge plate misalignment.
Mr Lee eventually decided not to review the products, after a “heated up and aggressive” argument broke out over the quality of the accessories on one of his social media posts.
The argument was between Ms Tan and her boyfriend, and one of Mr Lee’s followers.
On Jan 23, 2023, Mr Lee told her that the accessories were damaged.
When they met at the entrance of his condominium that day, he told her he had crashed his bicycle in Malaysia, and that he had discovered the damage only when unscrewing the accessories.
She replied that the damage looked like it had been deliberately caused by tools.
Mr Lee left the condo without responding, and made a police report later that day as he felt intimidated by Ms Tan, who was accompanied by her boyfriend and another man.
The next day, he published identical posts on Facebook and Instagram, narrating the events that led to him lodging the police report.
He referred to Ms Tan using words such as “my friend”, “her”, and “owner of the company”.
He added that businesses that would like him to review their products have to accept that he would write about “both good points and not so good points”, and that items which are passed to him belong to him unless otherwise agreed.
The posts included the hashtag #productreview and redacted photographs of the police report.
Makericks3D filed the lawsuit two months later.
In its closing submissions, the company quantified its claim for damages at just under $140,000.
Judge Ng said that although Mr Lee mentioned in the posts that the accessories were damaged, he attributed this to the impact sustained during his overseas trip.
“The ordinary reasonable person would understand the posts to mean that the accessories were damaged not because they were not of good quality, but because of an extraneous incident,” he said.
The firm argued that the posts could be construed as a backhanded review, citing Mr Lee’s reference to “not so good points” and the #productreview hashtag.
Judge Ng said such an interpretation would require one to be “unduly suspicious and avid for scandal”.
The firm also argued that the posts used female pronouns, and could be linked to an earlier Facebook post on Oct 3, 2022, in which Ms Tan and the company were named.
The judge noted that the earlier post had been deleted by the time Mr Lee made the offending post. An ordinary and reasonable person would have to remember the contents of the earlier post and draw several connections to link the two posts, he said.
Selina Lum for The Straits Times
Bicycle parts firm loses defamation suit against influencer over Jan 2023 posts
