Court: Behavior exceeds limits, Weibo Big V is insulted by private messages and "cheats" to vent anger, sentenced to infringement and cheats | Law | Court
Weibo's "Big V" private message was criticized and "hung up" to vent their anger, and was sentenced to infringement. On August 3, the Beijing Internet Court released a report on the trial of cases involving cyber violence in the past five years.
Pengpai News noticed that in a network infringement liability dispute case, a legal blogger named "Big V" was found by the court to have infringed on the personality rights of others by venting his emotions through methods such as "hanging people" due to receiving private messages and insults.
The report shows that with the continuous development of social networks and the application of new technologies, new forms of online violence are updating rapidly and emerging endlessly. In terms of infringement, online violence that occurs through human flesh searches, synthesizing fake photos, creating emoticons, and disseminating "AI face changing" videos is becoming increasingly severe.
For example, in the network infringement liability dispute between Liu and Sun, "Big V" was accused of infringement after being scolded for his private message and "hanging people" to vent his anger.
The case shows that Liu is a legal "big V" blogger on the Weibo platform, with nearly 500000 followers. Another Weibo user, Sun, sent insulting language to Liu and his family through a private message on Weibo due to a current affairs issue and different views from Liu. Liu publicly posted "hanging people" on Weibo, continuously posting multiple Weibo posts and comments. He also made public screenshots of the two's private message chat, Sun's personal photo, and Sun's personal account information on Weibo. He used a large number of insulting remarks to counter Sun, causing many netizens to pay attention, comment, and share.
Sun expressed apologies to Liu multiple times through private messages on Weibo in order to calm the situation, but Liu did not accept them and sued Sun in court, requesting that Sun post an apology letter on his personal Weibo and the official website of his school and pay for mental damages. Sun filed a counterclaim with the court, requesting that Liu delete the infringing content involved, post an apology letter on Weibo, and pay for mental damages.
After trial, the court found that Sun insulted Liu through private messages, using uncivilized and insulting language, which damaged Liu's personal dignity and constituted an infringement of Liu's general personality rights. At the same time, as an influential "Big V" blogger and legal worker, Liu used insulting remarks and accompanied Sun's photo, which exceeded reasonable limits and infringed on the plaintiff's reputation and portrait rights.
In the end, the court comprehensively considered the degree of fault of both parties, the specific methods of infringement, and the scope of impact caused, and ruled that Liu deleted the Weibo and comments related to the infringement of Sun's portrait and reputation. Both parties apologized in writing to each other, and the amount of compensation for mental damages offset each other.
After the first instance judgment was made, Liu was dissatisfied and appealed to the Fourth Intermediate People's Court of Beijing. The Fourth Intermediate People's Court of Beijing rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.
"In recent years, because of different views on public events, Internet users argue with other Internet users through private letters and public blogs, and even use insulting words to abuse others." The Beijing Internet Court said in the judge's interpretation that in this case, although Sun attacked Liu through private letters, it contained relatively serious insulting words, did not respect the human dignity of others, and constituted a violation of Liu's general human rights. However, as a legal worker, Liu, who was originally a victim of online violence, did not protect his rights in a legal manner. Instead, he vented his emotions through methods such as "human flesh search" and "hanging people", which also violated legal provisions and constituted an infringement on the personality rights of others. In the face of online infringement by others, victims should not use violence to control violence. Instead, they should vent their emotions and infringe on the personal rights and interests of others through insults, spreading rumors and defamation, infringing on privacy and portraits, etc. Instead, they should use legal weapons and legitimate means to protect their own rights and interests.
