Defamation damages in the UK: what courts awarded in 42 social media and online libel cases (2019 to 2026)

1. How much can you claim for defamation in the UK?

We read every High Court judgment on Find Case Law from January 2019 to November 2026 that fixed defamation damages for something published online, and found 42 judgments with 47 awards (method). The average award was about £49,900, above the £45,000 median because five awards reached £100,000 or more. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own courts and defamation law, so their judgments are not included.

Awards by how the case was decided

Defendants who never defended did not get off lighter: the median after a default judgment was £52,500, against £50,000 after a trial. Summary disposal kept all three of its awards at £10,000 or less.

3. The 42 judgments, one by one

Each judgment shows the damages per claimant, the platform and the year; open Details for what was published, the award paragraph, serious harm and any injunction or appeal. The case name links to the full judgment.

4. Defamation damages on X (Twitter), Facebook, YouTube and other platforms

X (Twitter) produced the most awards. Online news sites and YouTube produced the highest medians, but those groups are small: a handful of judgments can move a median by tens of thousands of pounds.

Online reviews sit lowest, with a median of £17,500. One of the four review awards was limited to the claimant's own statement of value: in Dudley v Phillips the judge said damages would otherwise have been £30,000 to £40,000. Facebook ranges from £10,000 to £100,000; the top figure is Hijazi v Yaxley-Lennon, two videos posted to an account with over 1 million followers.

By year of judgment

Yearly medians move between £35,000 and £60,000 with no steady rise or fall. Each year holds only three to nine awards, so one large or nominal award shifts its median.

5. How judges calculate defamation damages

There is no tariff or formula. Each case turns on its facts, but the judgments repeat the same factors that raise or lower the award.

• Serious harm. Under section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013 a statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the claimant's reputation; for a body that trades for profit, serious financial loss. In 21 awards the defendant contested serious harm and the claimant still established it; where the defendant took no part, judges often inferred it from the words and the audience.
• How far the words travelled. Almost every judgment records the reach: about 7,000 readers of an article in Burgon v News Group Newspapers (para 108), 144,000 Twitter followers in Aaronson v Stones (para 432) and around 850,000 views of one Facebook video in Hijazi v Yaxley-Lennon (para 31).
• The defendant's conduct. Repeating the allegation, a truth defence maintained to trial without evidence or a failure to apologise led judges to add aggravated damages or to set a higher single award.
• The claimant's own choices. A statement of value on the claim form, or summary disposal, where damages cannot exceed £10,000 under section 9 of the Defamation Act 1996, kept six awards below what the judge said the case deserved.
• The claimant's own conduct. In Riley v Murray the award was reduced to reflect the claimant's own provocative earlier tweet; in Wright v McCormack it fell to £1 because the claimant advanced a deliberately false case on serious harm.
• An appeal. In Blake v Fox the Court of Appeal found £90,000 per claimant for two tweets too high and cut each award to £45,000.

Injunctions and publishing the judgment. An injunction to stop repetition was granted in 30 of the 42 judgments, and in 12 the defendant was ordered, or undertook, to publish a summary of the judgment, often on the same account that carried the original post.

Anonymous publishers. A claim can be brought against people who cannot be named: in Zhurba v Persons Unknown each claimant was awarded £10,000 against the unknown people who put an article on a website.

6. What it costs and what happens first

Before you issue a claim, the Pre-action Protocol for Media and Communications Claims expects you to write to the publisher with a letter of claim. It identifies the publication and the words, says what they mean and why they are wrong, and explains how they caused or are likely to cause serious harm; where possible, enclose a copy.

The publisher should reply in full as soon as reasonably possible and, if it cannot do so within 14 days, say when it will. The court expects both sides to consider settling, for example through mediation, and refusing to engage can lead to an order to pay additional costs. How closely each side followed the protocol also counts when the court decides costs. The judgments in this study record the damages, not what the claims cost, so ask a solicitor for an estimate before you start.