Vancouver man ordered to pay $20K over non-consensual intimate videos posted online

A Vancouver man with a wide social media following has been ordered to pay a woman $20,000 over non-consensual intimate videos he posted online. Sheriff Elbishlawi operates an Instagram account with more than 100,000 followers that features him approaching women outside nightclubs in locations like Vancouver's Granville Street and Las Vegas's Fremont Street.

Elbishlawi's videos show him lifting women in the air while exposing them to the camera. When women wore skirts, the videos often captured up-skirt shots, which were frequently used as video thumbnails. One victim, identified as Z.D. by B.C.'s Civil Resolution Tribunal, was drunk when the video was filmed and explicitly asked Elbishlawi not to post it. He either ignored her requests or insisted on meeting in person, telling her "I don't do favours for strangers."

After Elbishlawi uploaded the videos to Instagram and Facebook, Meta removed his account and the videos. He then re-created an account and reposted the videos, which were viewed thousands of times before being removed again.

Tribunal member Maria Montgomery noted that Elbishlawi "has not apologized and maintains that he committed no wrongdoing." She found that while the videos may not have been explicitly generated for sale, they appeared designed to gain social media exposure. The fact that Meta removed the videos twice undermined Elbishlawi's claim that he didn't know they were considered intimate videos.

Z.D. sued for $35,000 in damages for mental distress, citing humiliation, embarrassment and anxiety about whether the videos would resurface. Montgomery awarded $10,000 in compensatory damages and $10,000 in aggravated and punitive damages, finding Elbishlawi's refusal to remove the videos on request and subsequent reposting "markedly departs from ordinary standards of decent behaviour." The tribunal noted it could not determine whether the videos remain on a paywalled platform promoted by Elbishlawi.