Two teenage girls who incited riots in Sweden by posting insults about about their classmates online and calling them 'sluts' have been found guilty of defamation. The defendants, aged 15 and 16, set up an Instagram page on which they posted photographs of other girls and boys annotated with derogatory remarks.
Scroll down for videos. The girls who set up this 'Sluts of Gothenburg' account on Instagram have been found guilty of defamation. One of the girls is pictured in court with Arash Raoufi, who represented the victims in the case.
For more videos, please go to Klykan Karisson. In December, the girls created the 'Sluts of Gothenburg' account on photo-sharing site Instagram, encouraging people to share photos of teenagers whom they claimed were sexually promiscuous. One of them put out an appeal asking 'which young people are the worst sluts in Gothenburg', and received hundreds of replies.
The page quickly became notorious in Sweden's second-largest city, and a crowd of hundreds turned up at a school rumoured to be attended by the page's creator in protest at the 'slut-shaming' behaviour, prompting a showdown with police. The year-old admitted setting up the Instagram account, and although the elder girl denied the charges the Gothenburg District Court criticised her for seeming to have a poor grasp of facts. Gothenburg was hit with riots over the controversial online posts in December.
Police confronted protesters who turned up at the girls' school in vigilante retaliation. They were proven to have been responsible for the online abuse thanks to forensic evidence which was submitted to the court. Arash Raoufi, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the verdict could help curb cyber-bullying by showing that it is impossible to hide behind an online pseudonym in order to abuse others.
