Irish courts have denied a college student's request to keep his name out of national newspapers in connection with a viral YouTube video that caused many to wrongly accuse him of evading taxi fare last fall, the Irish Examiner reports.
Dublin City University student Eoin McKeogh, 22, was studying abroad in Japan last fall when he began receiving Facebook messages calling him a "scumbag" and a "thief," according to the Daily Mail.
McKeogh soon discovered the angry messages were inspired by a YouTube video of a group of young men skipping out on cab fare.
In the video, friends can be heard calling one of the men "Eoin." In addition to the shared name, the man in the video unfortunately also bares a striking resemblance to McKeogh.
The likeness caused one YouTube commenter to misidentify the man as Eoin McKeogh, and within hours his name had spread across Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites, according to the Mail.
In response, McKeogh took legal action in an effort to stop his name from being connected to the video.
After McKeogh presented his passport in court to prove he was out of the country when the video was filmed, he was granted a temporary injunction against Facebook and other websites, preventing them from posting the video, the Evening Herald reports.
But the terms of the injunction did not include language prohibiting newspapers from using McKeogh's name in their stories. Thus, by the time McKeogh applied for a "super-injunction" requesting that six national newspapers withhold his name, his name was already well-known to the public.
As a result, High Court Judge Michael Peart ruled that their responsibility to carry out justice in public far outweighed McKeogh's right to privacy, and allowed newspapers to continue using his name.
It remains to be seen whether McKeogh will pursue any additional legal action to clear his name, but in the meantime he's already facing legal costs that the High Court estimates could cost as much as any "sufficient house" in Ireland, according to the Irish Examiner.
As for the Eoin in the taxi video, the Daily Mail reported Sunday that they were able to identify the man as Eoin Black from south Co. Dublin.
According to the paper, Black confessed to being the Eoin in the video, has since paid the taxi fare and seeking legal advice regarding how to further clear Eoin McKeogh's name.
"I am sorry for Eoin McKeogh and I want the real story to be told. I don't want the story to be twisted and blown up," Black told the Mail in an interview. "This is between me, the taxi driver and Eoin McKeogh. I've paid my 50 Euro fare and I thought that would be an end to it. I would like to tell the real story for Eoin McKeogh's sake but I want to get legal advice before I do that."