IU has won a key court order in the United States in her fight to unmask the anonymous Threads user behind a string of false claims about her, including allegations that she is a Chinese national and that she exploited the deaths of fellow celebrities.
According to a report by Sports Kyunghyang on November 9, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted IU’s discovery application against Meta on November 5 local time. The ruling came 113 days after IU’s side first asked the American court to help identify the account holder, and it clears the way for the singer-actress to put a name to the posts.
The order allows IU’s side to demand the subscriber information Meta holds for the Threads account, including the name, email address, phone number, and access records. Until now, IU’s side has been unable to pin down who wrote the posts, which has made it difficult to serve the complaint in the civil defamation lawsuit under way in South Korea.
The anonymous user, identified in reports only as “A,” is accused of repeatedly posting falsehoods about IU on Threads and presenting fabricated claims as fact. The posts alleged that IU is a Chinese national, that she used the deaths of late fellow entertainers for her own gain, and that she was connected to matters of national importance. IU’s side says 52 such posts were published between March and October last year.
The case has been building for months. IU filed a civil defamation suit against the anonymous account at the Seoul Central District Court on June 25. Unable to identify the author, her side applied to the U.S. court on July 15 for a discovery order compelling Meta to hand over the subscriber’s details. The court’s decision to grant the application, 113 days later, marks the first step toward identifying the account holder.
IU, whose real name is Lee Ji-eun, is one of South Korea’s biggest solo artists, with a career spanning music and acting, and she has long been a frequent target of online rumors. With the order granted, her side can now move forward with serving the complaint in the Seoul lawsuit, a step that had been stalled for months while the author’s identity remained unknown. What happens next depends on the information Meta provides and how quickly the case can proceed once the account holder is identified.
