Tucao was convicted of infringement, where is the boundary between bad reviews and defamation

  Chen Guangjiang

  According to a report by The Paper on January 17, recently, a precedent on "bad reviews is risky" has become popular.

A graduate student from a university in Beijing and another user were sued to the court for posting a negative review of the "Arts and Science Kaoyan.com" on an online platform.

The court of first instance ruled that the two defendants made a public apology to the plaintiff to eliminate the impact; they compensated the plaintiff for economic losses of 2,500 yuan respectively;

Recently, both the plaintiff and the two defendants have filed appeals.

  The basic case is as follows: the postgraduate students have purchased relevant re-examination courses, and based on their experience, they left a message on the online platform, "The literary exam is eyeing on WeChat, and whoever dares to real name will be attacked by the Internet", etc. The court believes that the relevant words constitute a reputational infringement.

Another user's evaluation contained words such as "rotten, white, disgusting". Although it indicated that the account was stolen, the court judged that it constituted a reputation infringement due to the failure to provide evidence.

Several netizens made similar comments on the online platform involved. The plaintiff believed that the poor review of the platform had affected the efficiency of the company and listed them as a defendant. Later, the lawsuit was withdrawn because the platform deleted the post.

  The above judgment made many netizens worry: can they still give bad reviews to merchants in the future?

Fortunately, all parties concerned have appealed, and the dispute has not yet been settled.

  According to Article 9 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Trial of Reputation Cases, consumers' criticisms and comments on the product quality or service quality of producers, operators and sellers should not be regarded as infringing on the reputation of others. However, those who take the opportunity to slander, slander and damage their reputation shall be deemed to have violated the right of reputation.

It can be seen that there is indeed a problem of grasping the scale of evaluation.

  Where is the boundary between reasonable bad reviews and malicious slander?

Judicial practice usually considers from the following perspectives: whether the negative review is based on real transactions, whether the number of negative reviews basically corresponds to the number of transactions, whether the situation stated in the negative review is basically true and objective, and whether the negative review has been Actual damage to the reputation of the operator.

  In the Internet age, people's necessities of life are increasingly inseparable from online shopping, and negative reviews are more commonplace.

Whether the bad reviews given by consumers based on their own consumption experience can be regarded as malicious insults or slander, or to what extent the “bad” evaluation can constitute malicious insults, slander and other infringements, really needs a clear statement and reference.

It is hoped that the final trial and judgment of the above-mentioned cases will achieve a legal effect and provide guidance and help to the resolution of disputes between consumers and businesses in reality.