He has since commenced separate proceedings against celebcritics.com over the published article and on Sep 15, the State Courts declared that the article contained false statements about Mr Shanmugam, and the website was given a stop publication order.
The third TikTok user referred to in Mr Shanmugam’s affidavit went by the username thaddeusthomas81 and allegedly posted a video on Aug 17 which was purported to be about the minister with the caption: “Clarifications and a look at who is the wife and alleged mistress”.
The video also contained an image, among others, of Ms Foo Mee Har with the words “alleged affair with MP Foo Mee Har”.
In his affidavits, Mr Shanmugam states that he has never engaged in such an affair.
In an effort to clarify the false allegations, Mr Shanmugam took to Facebook where he said that the allegations attributed to his former wife were, in fact, written by an imposter.
Mr Shanmugam stated that his ex-wife had told him that she did not write them and that it was an imposter who made up the allegations.
The minister also clarified that the allegations of his supposed affair with Ms Foo were “false and baseless”.
His affidavits cited an Aug 18 Mothership article as well, that detailed the apologies made by two individuals who published similar allegations.
TIKTOK’S REFUSAL TO PROVIDE USER INFORMATION
Following the discovery of the videos, Mr Shanmugam had engaged lawyers to ask TikTok to take immediate action to disable access to the videos.
The request also asked for TikTok to provide the three users’ basic subscriber information.
However, TikTok responded in an email saying that they were unable to disclose the information in the absence of a court order or other legal requirement.
Even though TikTok did not provide assistance, Mr Shanmugam’s lawyers were still able to try to reach out to two of these TikTok users through Facebook, requesting that they remove the videos and provide a written apology, but no response was received.
PROVISION OF USERS’ INFORMATION ‘NECESSARY’
As Mr Shanmugam has been unable to ascertain the identity or address of the three TikTok users, he has been unable to commence legal proceedings directly against them.
In his affidavits, Mr Shanmugam stated that the request for the documents and information would help lead him to the users’ identities and it is proportionate to require TikTok to produce them.
In using TikTok, the users have agreed not to publish any material that is deliberately designed to provoke or intended to harass, harm, hurt, distress, embarrass or upset people, but this was breached by the three users when they uploaded the videos, he said.
Additional reporting by Loraine Lee.
This article was originally published in TODAY.