Bethany Alvaro 
The failed court case claims that allegations suggesting that Bressington had engaged in a non-consensual sexual relationship with a minor that initially surfaced on the r/triplej subreddit were defamatory, and sought to unmask private data of users who contributed to these discussions to “contemplate” legal action against individuals.
The District Court of Northern California, where Reddit is based, denied Bressington’s attempts to force the forum-style platform to identify the names, phone numbers and email addresses of anonymous users who he claims were defaming him.
This means Reddit will not have to disclose sensitive data linked to the deleted thread, keeping user information private.
In his refusal, Judge William Alsup said the case was “overreaching” and “over-burdensome”, noting that Bressington had not even denied the allegations, saying that he “has not specifically rejected as false one of the most basic assertions alleged: that when not a minor he had sex with a minor”.
As these allegations came to light, the band was also facing criticism for misogynistic lyrics in a newly released single, Moody, with lyrics like “My girl’s a bitch when she’s moody”, sparking backlash from listeners.
The statement prepared by Bressington’s legal team said that “the Royel Otis’s song ‘Moody’ proved to be a hit but also fodder, because of its song lyrics, for anonymous people on the internet allegedly falsely to label Bressington a sexual ‘predator’ who had engaged in a nonconsensual sexual relationship with a minor while he was her music teacher.”
Social media platforms like Reddit are bound by either state or federal law that requires them to keep user information like name, age, contact details, and location private and secure; however, there have been previous cases of musicians receiving this data and using it in defamation cases.
For example, in 2022, a judge ordered X (formerly Twitter) to provide the information of a user who made sexual abuse claims against All Time Low guitarist, Jack Barakat. Canadian DJ, Snails, won a $1.5 million defamation case following the identification of an anonymous Instagram user who ran an account reposting sexual allegations against him.
In this case, however, Royel Otis is looking anything but royal.