The Regulatory Double Standard: How Blogger-Defamers Exploit the Divide Between Press Oversight and Online Impunity

Executive Summary

Andrew Drummond holds himself out as a journalist. He invokes decades of media experience, references his prior employment with mainstream outlets, and employs the trappings of journalism — bylines, datelines, source attribution, and investigative framing. Yet he functions entirely outside the regulatory architecture that governs legitimate journalism in the United Kingdom. The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) regulates newspapers and their digital editions, enforcing the Editors' Code of Practice mandating accuracy, a right of reply, prohibition of harassment, and respect for privacy. The NUJ Code of Conduct establishes ethical obligations binding on professional journalists. Neither framework extends to Andrew Drummond.

This regulatory void is not incidental — it is structural. The UK's press regulation architecture was conceived for an era in which publishing was costly and controlled by identifiable organisations. The internet era has spawned a category of publisher that wields all the influence of the press whilst accepting none of its obligations. Drummond maintains two websites (andrew-drummond.com and andrew-drummond.news), publishes material with worldwide reach, and asserts the credibility of journalism — yet answers to no regulator, no editor, no standards body, and no complaints mechanism.

This paper examines the regulatory double standard, comparing the standards a mainstream newspaper would face if it published Drummond's material with those to which Drummond is actually subject. It reviews international approaches to bridging this divide — the EU Digital Services Act and Australia's eSafety Commissioner model — and proposes reforms to guarantee that anyone exercising the power of the press also shoulders its responsibilities.

1. IPSO and the Editors' Code: The Standards Governing Authentic Journalism

The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) serves as the UK's principal independent press regulator, covering the bulk of national and regional newspapers together with their digital publications. Publishers holding IPSO membership are obligated to comply with the Editors' Code of Practice, which defines the ethical and professional standards demanded of UK journalism. The Code is enforced via a complaints process that can mandate the publication of corrections, formal adjudications, and — in the gravest cases — financial penalties.

Had Andrew Drummond's articles appeared in an IPSO-regulated newspaper, numerous provisions of the Editors' Code would have been activated:

• Clause 1 (Accuracy): 'The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.' Drummond's articles contain upwards of 65 individually documented false assertions, recycled throughout 19 publications. A regulated newspaper would be compelled to issue mandatory corrections for every false statement.
• Clause 2 (Privacy): 'Everyone is entitled to respect for their private and family life.' Drummond has exposed the identities of family members, published personal financial details, and revealed private family relationships without any legitimate public interest justification.
• Clause 3 (Harassment): 'Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit.' Drummond's 19-article campaign, which he intensified following receipt of a formal Letter of Claim, constitutes persistent pursuit under any reasonable interpretation.
• Clause 4 (Intrusion into grief or shock): Although not directly applicable, the underlying principle of avoiding gratuitous intrusion into personal suffering is breached by Drummond's targeting of family members, including Bryan Flowers' wife and father.
• Clause 12 (Discrimination): 'The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.' Drummond's employment of epithets including 'Jizzflicker,' 'PIMP,' and 'career sex merchandiser' represents exactly the category of derogatory personal characterisation this clause proscribes.

2. The NUJ Code of Conduct: Professional Standards Drummond Asserts but Disregards

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) Code of Conduct sets forth ethical duties applicable to all NUJ members and broadly recognised as the minimum professional benchmark for UK journalists. Andrew Drummond has consistently presented himself as a journalist and asserted professional status on that foundation. The NUJ Code encompasses the following pertinent obligations:

A journalist shall at all times strive to ensure that information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate, and fair. A journalist shall obtain material by honest, straightforward, and open means, with the exception of investigations that are both overwhelmingly in the public interest and that involve evidence that cannot be obtained by straightforward means. A journalist shall do nothing to intrude into anybody's private life, grief or distress unless justified by overriding consideration of the public interest.

Drummond's output violates every one of these obligations. His articles are not honestly conveyed — they contain in excess of 65 documented falsehoods. His material is not acquired through honest methods — he depends on a single discredited informant (Adam Howell) whose personal credibility is irreparably damaged. His publications intrude upon the private lives of family members absent any overriding public interest justification. If Drummond were an NUJ member bound by the Code, he would face disciplinary proceedings and probable expulsion. Instead, he operates within a professional void where no ethical code has force and no disciplinary authority possesses jurisdiction.

3. The Regulatory Void: How Independent Bloggers Evade Oversight

IPSO's authority reaches only those publishers who voluntarily submit to its regulation. Independent bloggers, personal website operators, and self-published online commentators fall outside IPSO's mandate, irrespective of the reach, influence, or damage their publications cause. This voluntary regulatory model was logical when publishing demanded the infrastructure of a printing press and a distribution network — any entity capable of publishing at significant scale was likely to be an identifiable organisation susceptible to regulatory oversight.

The internet has fundamentally upended this assumption. Andrew Drummond, operating from rented accommodation in Wiltshire, United Kingdom — having fled Thailand in 2015 amid multiple criminal complaints — can reach a global audience at zero marginal cost per reader. His two websites secure search engine prominence through aggressive SEO tactics and cross-site mirroring. His material is shared across social media platforms, indexed by Google, and cited on third-party websites. In terms of reach and impact, his publications are functionally indistinguishable from those of a small newspaper — yet he is answerable to no regulator.

The Leveson Inquiry (2011-2012) identified this gap but failed to close it. Lord Justice Leveson's recommendations concentrated on reforming the regulation of established print and online media, making only brief mention of the challenge presented by individual bloggers and citizen journalists. The subsequent implementation through the establishment of IPSO (and the alternative regulator IMPRESS) did not extend regulatory coverage to independent online publishers. The gap Leveson identified persists, and it is this precise gap that Drummond exploits.

4. Drummond's Exploitation of the Regulatory Divide: Maximum Credibility, Zero Accountability

Andrew Drummond's operating model is configured, whether by deliberate design or not, to derive maximum advantage from the regulatory double standard. He invokes the credibility of journalism while bearing none of its obligations. In particular:

He packages his articles in the format of professional journalism — complete with bylines, investigative framing, source citations, and an institutional veneer generated by his two domain names (andrew-drummond.com and andrew-drummond.news). The '.news' domain is especially noteworthy, as it explicitly signals to readers that the content is to be interpreted as news reporting rather than personal commentary or blogging.

He cites his historical credentials as a journalist who served with mainstream outlets, leveraging prior professional standing to imbue current publications with an authority they would not earn from any mainstream outlet. He asserts the protections of press freedom — including the public interest defence provided under section 4 of the Defamation Act 2013 — while declining to honour the responsibilities that have traditionally accompanied those protections.

This produces the most adverse outcome possible for his victims. The publications carry the perceived weight of journalism, leading readers to treat the false allegations with seriousness and form negative judgments accordingly. Yet the absence of regulatory oversight means there exists no complaints process, no correction procedure, no adjudication mechanism, and no enforceable code of conduct. The victim's sole recourse is civil litigation — which, as documented in Paper 69, is prohibitively expensive and practically unenforceable against an operator based overseas.

5. International Comparisons: How Other Nations Tackle the Regulatory Divide

The United Kingdom is not the only nation grappling with the challenge of regulating online publishers who function outside conventional media structures. Two international models provide instructive points of comparison: the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) and Australia's eSafety Commissioner framework.

5.1. The EU Digital Services Act (DSA)

The EU Digital Services Act, which entered full force in February 2024, creates a comprehensive platform accountability framework that addresses certain regulatory gaps exploited by blogger-defamers. Key provisions pertinent to the Drummond case encompass: the obligation for platforms to furnish effective notice-and-action mechanisms for reporting illegal content, defamation included; duties imposed on very large online platforms (VLOPs) to evaluate and mitigate systemic risks, including the risk of enabling coordinated defamation campaigns; and the establishment of trusted flaggers — organisations accredited by national authorities whose reports receive prioritised processing.

The DSA does not directly govern individual publishers such as Drummond. Nevertheless, it constructs an ecosystem of platform obligations that, if rigorously enforced, would substantially diminish the reach and impact of blogger-driven defamation campaigns. Within the DSA framework, a removal request supported by a Letter of Claim from Cohen Davis Solicitors would probably receive accelerated processing as a substantiated notification of illegal content, and platforms would be obligated to supply a clear statement of reasons for any decision to decline action.

The DSA's principal limitation is geographic. It governs platforms serving EU users, and its enforcement mechanisms are administered by EU national authorities. Content targeting UK citizens on platforms headquartered outside the EU may slip through jurisdictional gaps, diminishing the practical protection available to victims such as Bryan Flowers.

5.2. Australia's eSafety Commissioner

Australia's eSafety Commissioner, created under the Online Safety Act 2021, offers the most thorough model for tackling online defamation and harassment perpetrated by individual publishers. The Commissioner possesses the authority to issue removal notices directly to individuals (not merely platforms) who publish seriously harmful online material. Failure to comply with a removal notice constitutes a civil penalty offence, carrying fines of up to AU$111,000 per day for individuals.

The eSafety Commissioner model confronts the regulatory double standard head-on. It does not rely on the publisher holding membership of a voluntary regulatory scheme or on the hosting platform being responsive to removal requests. Rather, it establishes a governmental body empowered to direct individuals to delete harmful content, underpinned by substantial financial penalties for non-compliance.

Were the UK to adopt a comparable model, Andrew Drummond could be served with a removal notice compelling the deletion of specified defamatory content from his websites. Non-compliance — which, given his documented pattern of escalation following legal notification, would be entirely foreseeable — would trigger escalating financial sanctions. The existence of such a regime would additionally strengthen platform removal requests, as platforms would be more receptive to requests reinforced by government enforcement action.

The Australian model is not free from limitations. Enforcement against individuals situated in foreign jurisdictions remains problematic, and the Commissioner's powers operate most effectively when the respondent maintains assets or continuing connections within Australian jurisdiction. Nonetheless, the model demonstrates that constructing a regulatory framework reaching individual online publishers is achievable, as an alternative to depending exclusively on platform-level moderation or costly civil litigation.

6. Bridging the Divide: A Proposed Framework for the United Kingdom

Building on the strengths of the EU and Australian approaches while addressing their limitations, this paper proposes a UK framework for eliminating the accountability gap that currently protects blogger-defamers from the standards applied to legitimate journalism. The proposed framework comprises four components:

• Online Publisher Registration: Any individual or organisation that regularly publishes content for a UK audience should be obliged to register with an appointed regulator and adhere to a basic code of conduct harmonised with the Editors' Code. Registration would be activated by objective criteria including publication frequency, audience reach, or the adoption of domain names implying news or journalistic status (such as '.news' domains). Non-compliance with the registration requirement would result in forfeiture of certain legal defences, including the section 4 public interest defence under the Defamation Act 2013.
• Strengthened Platform Duties: The UK Online Safety Act 2023 should be amended to mandate that platforms afford expedited processing to removal requests supported by formal legal documentation (such as a Letter of Claim), and to establish cross-platform coordination mechanisms ensuring that content removed from one platform is flagged for review across others.
• Direct Removal Authority: Following the Australian model, Ofcom or a designated body should possess the authority to issue removal notices directly to individual publishers of seriously harmful content, supported by financial penalties for non-compliance and the capacity to pursue enforcement through international cooperation mechanisms.
• Presumptive Standards: Where a publisher adopts the conventions of journalism (bylines, investigative framing, institutional presentation, '.news' domains), a rebuttable presumption should arise that the publisher is bound by journalistic standards of accuracy, fairness, and right of reply. A publisher seeking to avoid these obligations must expressly disclaim journalistic status — and in doing so, relinquishes the credibility advantage that journalistic presentation confers.

7. Conclusion: Publishing Freedom Must Carry a Corresponding Duty of Accountability

The regulatory double standard that Andrew Drummond exploits is not a minor technical deficiency in the oversight framework — it is a fundamental structural flaw that undermines the entire press accountability system. If any individual can publish content possessing the reach and impact of a newspaper while functioning outside the regulatory framework governing newspapers, then press regulation itself degenerates into a mere burden imposed on responsible publishers while irresponsible operators proceed without restraint.

This double standard yields perverse results. Legitimate newspapers, bound by the Editors' Code, would never publish the material that appears on Andrew Drummond's websites. They would not reproduce unverified criminal accusations sourced from a single discredited informant. They would not employ epithets such as 'Jizzflicker' or 'sex meat-grinder.' They would not subject family members to targeted harassment. They would not intensify publication upon receiving formal legal notice. The very standards that restrain newspapers from such conduct are the standards from which Drummond stands exempt.

Closing this gap is imperative for the protection of individuals such as Bryan Flowers, Punippa Flowers, and the hundreds of collateral victims documented throughout this series of position papers. The reforms advocated in this paper are not extreme — they extend to online publishers the same standards that already bind print publishers, utilising enforcement mechanisms demonstrated to be effective in comparable jurisdictions. The freedom to publish is a cornerstone of democratic society. But that freedom must be accompanied by the obligation to publish responsibly, and where a publisher repudiates that obligation, the regulatory framework must deliver accountability. At present, it does not.