False rumours spread via Facebook end with $842k defamation award

Rumours spread on Facebook amongst the Vietnamese-New Zealander community have seen almost $1m in defamation damages awarded against the posters. Photo / 123RF

False rumours of corruption and fraud bolstered with fabricated screenshots of hackers’ chatlogs that circulated on Facebook amongst the tight-knit New Zealand-Vietnamese community have been finally laid to rest with the High Court awarding nearly a million dollars for damages caused by defamation.

The court heard Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha had emigrated to New Zealand as a PhD candidate over a decade ago and is now a citizen. She has campaigned publicly against corruption at the Vietnamese embassy in New Zealand, and for better working conditions for Vietnamese migrants, and founded and operated - on a voluntary basis - an education charity.

She, represented by Felix Gerringer and Steven Price, filed a defamation action against Dang Son Dinh, Mai Thi Phuong Pham, Julie Pham and Minh Nguyen over a series of posts made on Facebook in 2021 and 2022.

The defendants had first falsely claimed Nguyen misappropriated $100,000 in funding for her VietKidsNZ charity and kept the money for herself, then later alleged she was behind a flurry of false copyright claims that had seen Facebook delete a number of New Zealand-Vietnamese group pages.

After Nguyen engaged lawyers to contest these false claims, she was sent a series of screenshots and videos “purporting to show conversations between Ms Nguyen and a 17-year-old hacker based in Vietnam named Tran Minh Doan, in which Ms Nguyen flirts with him and hires him to disable Facebook groups and pages”.

These screenshots were then also circulated widely on Facebook by accounts the High Court found were linked to the defendants.

Justice Christine Gordon noted in her ruling: “There is expert evidence which established these documents are falsified and this was subsequently accepted by the defendants.”

The expert evidence for the plaintiffs was provided by former New Zealand Herald data journalist Keith Ng, who found that the documents purportedly to be from hackers in Vietnam were created locally and had New Zealand timestamps and there was also evidence Dang was involved in their production.

This evidence was accepted by Justice Gordon: “I do find on the balance of probabilities that he [Dang] was involved in commissioning the fake documents and/or was involved in some of the fabrication himself.”

The proceedings at the High Court at Auckland were determined by formal proof after the defendants, despite having been served, took no steps to defend themselves. A hearing took place on July 18, with the final judgement delivered late last week.

Justice Gordon awarded nearly a million dollars in damages and costs, noting that for Nguyen: “The defamatory publications are all the more serious because they destroyed her reputation within the very community to which she had dedicated her life since moving to New Zealand in 2011.”

Dang Dinh was ordered to pay $395,000, including $30,000 in punitive damages for his role in circulating or fabricating the hacker chatlogs. Mai Pham was ordered to pay $225,000, Julie Fam $100,000 and Minh Nguyen $60,000. The plaintiff was also awarded $62,307 in costs.

Mai Thi Phuong Pham told the Herald she had not been made aware of the judgment by the court.

“I have lodged a formal complaint with Auckland High Court regarding the lack of notice about the hearing and the final judgment. Additionally, we are consulting our lawyer to apply to set aside this default judgment.”

* This article has been updated to include comments from Mai Pham.

Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism - including twice being named Reporter of the Year - and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting from business newspapers and national magazines.