Fake Facebook Profiles and a Smear Campaign: How a Court Unmasks a Pseudonym

“Using a pseudonym on social media is not in itself wrongful.” That is how the judgment opens. What follows explains exactly when it becomes so.

It begins on 2 June 2024 with a conviction. An animal rights activist, very active on Facebook, comes across a post by a pet store adviser who has just created a professional page to share her experience and advice about animals. The activist concludes that this woman is illegally practising veterinary medicine.

She files a complaint with Québec’s Ordre des médecins vétérinaires (the OMVQ, the professional order governing veterinarians). So far, nothing wrong.

But she does not stop there. For six weeks, under at least seven different pseudonyms, she runs a denunciation campaign that will land the adviser in the emergency room, on medical leave, and in court.

In Morin c. Morasse, 2026 QCCQ 2606, rendered on 27 May 2026 by the Honourable Pierre A. Gagnon of the Court of Québec (civil division, district of Québec), the Court orders the defendant to pay $14,786.93 to the plaintiff and $5,700 to her spouse, and dismisses her counterclaim of more than $63,000.

The complaint to the order is not wrongful. What followed is.

The Court draws an essential distinction at the outset: it does not have to decide whether the complaint to the OMVQ was well founded. The activist filed it believing it was, and a veterinarian friend had reinforced that belief. Filing a complaint with a professional order is not a fault. It is, in fact, one of the mechanisms our system provides to protect the public.

What is wrongful is what came next.

On 3 June 2024, the defendant created the profile “Caro adviser in anything at all.” She claimed she did so in order to communicate with the plaintiff without being blocked. The Court does not believe her, and explains why: she had herself written that she wanted no further communication, yet she went on communicating freely under pseudonyms. The profile’s real purpose was to restate her conviction anonymously.

The landing page used a photo of the plaintiff with the caption “Fake vet.” It linked her to a news item headlined “In the Eastern region: a fake veterinarian behind the death of several dogs.” It displayed the employer’s phone number, photos lifted from the employer’s website, and the text “I practise illegally here. Come meet me!” Elsewhere: “Order of veterinarians! I don’t care about you!” and “Scoop! I’ll be on [the investigative TV show] J.E. this fall!”

The Court identifies several distinct faults in that single posting:

Invasion of privacy: using a person’s photograph without consent, for any purpose other than the legitimate information of the public, is an invasion of privacy (art. 36 C.C.Q.).
Injury to reputation: associating a person’s name with an “adviser in anything at all,” claiming she acts as a fake veterinarian and could contribute to the death of dogs.
The falsehood: asserting that the plaintiff “doesn’t care about the OMVQ” is untrue — the day before, she had contacted the order to confirm she was acting lawfully.
The barely veiled threat: the reference to the television program.

The Court adds a sentence worth remembering: “it is not for Morasse to defend the interests of the veterinary profession or to protect the public,” even though she has a right to freedom of expression. The posting “goes well beyond what would be necessary for the legitimate information of the public.”

How to prove who is behind a pseudonym

This is the practical heart of the judgment, and its most useful part.

The plaintiffs led no direct evidence: they neither subpoenaed Facebook nor obtained account identification data from the platform. Instead they relied on proof by presumptions of fact, a mode of proof provided for in the Civil Code. A court may infer an unknown fact from a known one, but it must consider only presumptions that are serious, precise and concordant.

Here is how the judge proceeded, profile by profile.

The “CM” profile. It posted a Google review on the employer’s page the same day the complaint was filed, then wrote a little later: “Following the advice of several veterinarians, a complaint to the order was filed this very day.” The initials match the defendant’s name, and the timing relative to her other writings can only confirm the same author.

The “Illegal practice” profile. It reproduced an extract from the OMVQ syndic’s acknowledgment of receipt — a document sent confidentially to the complainant a few days earlier. Only she could have known it, and above all could have reproduced it in the format received.

The Court takes the opportunity to correct a tendentious reading. The defendant cited the sentence “However, this is illegal practice of veterinary medicine” as confirmation by the order. Restored to context, that sentence comes from a paralegal explaining that the syndic’s office cannot investigate because the plaintiff is not a member of the order, and that the complaint is therefore being routed to the appropriate department. “In other words, the OMVQ did not rule on the complaint at all, or even examine it.” Quoting a passage out of context, while omitting the rest of the email, is itself a wrongful manoeuvre.

The “Caroline Morin swindler” profile. The content gives itself away: “I manage several FB groups, including one with 78,000 members” — the defendant admits managing several groups; “Be aware that warning the public is not defamation” — that has been her position from the start; references to documents sent to the order, known only to her; and an accusation against the plaintiffs that reproduces exactly what the defendant alleges in her own counterclaim.

The “Harassers Intimidators” and “Harassers” profiles. The messages contain information only the defendant could have: the story of a patio heater she had listed for sale, a photo of her cat, the names of the friends who had contacted her. “This message can only have come from Morasse.”

The Court also rejects the defendant’s suggestion that the plaintiff might have created the fake profiles herself out of revenge: “it is highly improbable that a person would create a fake profile to harm herself.”

The lesson is clear: a pseudonym betrays itself through what it knows. Every detail known to only one person is another piece of the puzzle.

Symmetry of the burden: the reverse claim fails

It bears emphasis that the Court applies exactly the same standard in the other direction. The defendant argued that the plaintiff couple were behind two other profiles, “Jérôme Carrier” and “Harassment.” She pointed to clues: the pseudonym had contacted her about her patio heater, the “Harassment” profile used a photo of her cat, and it disappeared after a case management conference.

The Court finds these presumptions insufficiently serious, precise and concordant. It is possible the author is an acquaintance of the plaintiffs, but “that is not enough.” Nor is there proof that the plaintiffs took part in those actions.

That is no small detail: it shows the judge did not apply a presumption of guilt to the less sympathetic party. He applied the same rule to both.

Calculating damages: what the Court refuses

The plaintiffs claimed $57,000. They receive $20,486.93 in total. The rejected heads of damage are as instructive as the ones allowed.

Refused — loss of sponsorship benefits ($6,000). The plaintiff deleted her professional page on the very day the OMVQ complaint was filed. That decision suggests she closed it because of the complaint, not because of the later postings. And the complaint is not wrongful. The loss is therefore not an immediate and direct consequence of the fault.

Reduced — loss of employment income. The plaintiff claimed $14,441.24. The Court redoes the math, adds the employment insurance benefits received to her income, notes that she did not prove she was dismissed because of the events — no testimony from the employer, no record of employment — and takes into account that by launching her own pet store in October 2024 she could no longer hold her job. Result: $4,000. The same amount for her spouse, who had kept no precise record of his absences.

Refused — costs related to loans ($8,470). The Court already compensates the loss of income and awards interest and the additional indemnity, which covers the interest paid on the loans. It notes in passing that a $30,000 loan was taken out at the very moment the new business was launched.

Refused — legal fees ($1,397.20) for advice and drafting the formal notice: not an immediate and direct consequence of the fault.

Allowed: the investigator’s fees for identifying the pseudonym ($258.69), medication ($498.24) and registered mail ($30).

Moral damages: $9,000 and $1,500. The Court applies the Supreme Court’s three approaches — conceptual, personal and functional. Aggravating factors: the multiplicity of epithets (“swindler,” “fake vet,” “the medical charlatans,” and mocking references to the spouse), the repeated use of photographs without authorization, and above all the posting on the employer’s professional site: she thereby, the Court writes, “maximized her denigration campaign.” A mitigating factor, on the other hand: the reach of the defamatory content remained relatively limited, and “it was for the Morin couple to prove it.”

The personal harm, however, is heavy: three panic attacks, an emergency room visit for a feeling of persecution, an extended medical leave for an adjustment disorder with anxious-depressive mood, anxiety-related skin picking, and the end of a professional and personal relationship of more than 25 years with the pet store’s owners.

Punitive damages: $1,000 and $200

Because the violation was unlawful and intentional, punitive damages are available under section 49 of the Charter of human rights and freedoms. But they may not exceed what is sufficient to fulfil their preventive function.

The Court compares a 2025 case in which a café customer had posted more than 30 defamatory Google reviews in breach of court orders, with 30,000 visits to the business page: $5,000 in punitive damages had been awarded, notably given net assets of over a million dollars.

Here the situation differs: the defendant breached no court order, works only about twenty hours a week, has health problems limiting her earning capacity, stopped posting after receiving the formal notice and undertook at the hearing not to comment on the parties’ professional sites. The risk of repetition is low. Hence $1,000 and $200.

That is modest. But it is consistent with Québec’s logic: punitive damages are not a punishment proportionate to outrage, they are a preventive tool calibrated to the person concerned.

Why this case stands out

Because it describes with precision a phenomenon that has become commonplace: private justice on social media. Someone becomes convinced of a wrongdoing, decides to “warn the public,” and turns a legitimate concern into a smear campaign. The Court uses the exact word: the defendant “casts herself as a vigilante, which goes beyond what a prudent and diligent person would have done.”

Because it also establishes that you can be unmasked without Facebook’s help. Many people believe online anonymity is watertight, or that without a court order against the platform there is nothing to be done. This judgment shows the opposite: the content of the messages is often enough.

Because, finally, it is a reminder that counterclaims can backfire. The counterclaim of more than $63,000 was dismissed, and the Court even held against its author the fact that she had characterized as harassment the six formal notices sent to each of the fake profiles — which “confirms the Court’s conviction that Morasse is indeed their author.”

One reservation, in fairness. The judgment leaves a gap: both parties represented themselves at trial. Better-built evidence — testimony from the employer, a record of employment, a demonstration of the actual reach of the postings — would probably have changed the amount awarded. The law does not reward indignation; it rewards proof.

Key takeaways

If you are the target. Document everything, immediately: dated screenshots, view counts, comments, shares. It is the reach of the publication that weighs most heavily in assessing moral damages, and it is for you to prove it. If you go on medical leave, have the cause documented by your physician and keep the records. And if you lose your job, call the employer as a witness — without that, the link to the fault will not be made.

If you believe something improper is going on. Complain to the competent body: that is your right and it is not a fault. But stop there. Doubling the complaint with a public campaign, especially on the page of the target’s employer, turns a protected act into a civil fault.

On pseudonyms. Hiding behind a fake account is not unlawful in itself, but it protects nothing — and it makes matters worse. The Court expressly held that “the use of the fake profiles was clearly intended to prevent the Morin couple from identifying Morasse,” which contributed to the objective seriousness of the violation.

On truncated quotations. Reproducing a sentence from an official document out of context, so as to make it say the opposite of what it says, is a standalone fault. That is true on Facebook, and equally true in an email, a press release or a court pleading.