Sentenced with apology and compensation of 14000 yuan, a woman posted on Weibo slandering the reputation right of a female teacher from a certain university for "establishing a romantic relationship" | Ms. | Weibo
The reporter learned from the Shanghai First Intermediate People's Court today that the court has concluded a case of online users using information networks to infringe on the reputation rights of natural persons. The second instance found that the poster Zhang maliciously published articles using his Weibo account, constituting defamation and infringing on Ms. Chen's reputation rights. Therefore, the appeal was rejected and the first instance judgment was upheld. Zhang should apologize in writing to Ms. Chen and compensate for various losses totaling more than 14000 yuan.
On January 8, 2022, a Weibo user posted an article accusing Ms. Chen, a university teacher, of using marriage to defraud her of property. The article was vehemently worded, stating that Ms. Chen "used marriage to defraud her of property", "slandered and used the old principal", "morally degraded", "deliberately seized property", "angered my mother and violently assaulted her family", and "established a romantic relationship". After the article was published, it quickly attracted the attention of the university. After investigation, the school sent a letter to Weibo regarding the deletion of false online statements. Weibo subsequently deleted the article.
But the Weibo user who posted the article did not stop there. Instead, they changed their nickname and registered another account. During the period from January 10, 2022 to March 20, 2022, I posted several articles and even made comments such as "Do you think deleting posts can cover up the truth?" "Your intimidation and deletion of articles expose your actions that you want to cover up." I also @ other Weibo influencers multiple times to expand my coverage.
During this period, Ms. Chen repeatedly complained to Weibo requesting the deletion of relevant articles, and from February 14, 2022, she requested Weibo to ban and close two accounts that published articles. But Weibo only deleted relevant articles and comments each time, without taking measures such as banning words, closing accounts, or disclosing the information of Weibo account registrants.
Ms. Chen, unable to bear the disturbance, sued her posting account and Weibo platform together in court, demanding that she bear the responsibility for infringing her reputation rights.
The first instance court found that both Weibo account users who posted were Zhang, and she failed to provide evidence to prove that the allegations in the article in question were true, which was a fabrication of false facts and constituted defamation of Ms. Chen, infringing on her reputation. Therefore, she was ordered to apologize in writing to Ms. Chen and compensate for more than 14000 yuan in lawyer fees, evidence collection fees, and mental damages. The operating entities of Weibo promptly fulfilled their obligation to delete the articles and related remarks that Ms. Chen had infringed upon her reputation rights, fulfilling the obligations of a network service provider. Therefore, Weibo has no infringement behavior in this case and does not bear civil liability.
Zhang was dissatisfied with the judgment and appealed to the Shanghai Intermediate People's Court, requesting the revocation of the first instance judgment and the dismissal of all of Ms. Chen's first instance litigation requests.
After trial, the Shanghai Intermediate People's Court found that Zhang failed to provide evidence to prove the authenticity of the content of the article he published on Weibo, and his act of publishing the article in question constituted defamation. The act of Zhang publishing articles and false statements related to the case, which resulted in both Weibo posts having a reading volume of over 100 people, is enough to cause a decrease in the social evaluation of Ms. Chen in relevant aspects. From the content and frequency of Zhang's posts, it can be seen that he actively pursues the purpose of infringing on Ms. Chen's reputation and reducing her social evaluation, and there is subjective intention. Therefore, Zhang's behavior meets the constitutive requirements of reputation infringement and should bear corresponding infringement liability.
As for Ms. Chen's request to close the two Weibo accounts involved in the case, it falls within the scope of Weibo's exercise of platform autonomy management authority or the performance of the service contract between Weibo and Zhang. Moreover, this request goes beyond the reasonable and necessary scope and does not meet the requirement of proportionality. Considering that Ms. Chen has not appealed against this, the Shanghai First Intermediate People's Court also upheld the judgment in the first instance.
In summary, the Shanghai Intermediate People's Court rejected the appeal and upheld the original verdict.