When giving a bad review, there is freedom to be reasonable and well-founded

Recently, a lawsuit about "bad reviews" touched the nerves of netizens.

This is a dispute over the right to reputation. The plaintiff is a research counseling organization called "Liberal Arts Examination and Research Network", and the defendant is its customer, Zhang Ming (pseudonym), a graduate student at a university in Beijing. In February 2020, Zhang Ming purchased the re-examination course of the Liberal Arts Examination network on the Taobao online store, and posted a bad review of the course online.

In a April 7 post on the Zhihu platform, he said: "Why anonymity? Because The Wenkao tiger is looking at the rack on WeChat, who dares to use his real name will definitely be attacked by the Internet! ...... Including the price is really expensive, some courses are really of average quality, especially the service attitude is quite bad, this is real. Instead of condemning bad reviews, you should think about whether these problems exist or not? Does the consumer have the right to say? ”

In September 2021, the Liberal Arts Examination network sued Zhang Ming, another account "Ma Qian" and Zhihu Platform for suspected defamation. The website believes that Zhang Ming's hair is not a normal "bad review", but a nonsense, rumors and slander - his Taobao store praise rate of 99.22%, there are few bad reviews, and Zhang Ming "bought a course", did not feedback dissatisfaction through any channels, did not "withdraw from the class refund", "after being admitted to graduate school, he also sent words of thanks to the course", and so on.

As of October 2020, when it was notarized, Zhang Ming's speech in Zhihu received only 16 likes and 3 comments. Zhang Ming told the media that he had not raised the quality of the course to the Liberal Arts Examination and Research Network before, on the one hand, it was not too late, the course was completed in 4 nights; on the other hand, he was afraid, because he had heard customer service say that the bad reviews would be cleaned out of the group. "After the success of the examination, I did say words of thanks, but that was the kind words they said casually when they came to ask about the results." Another accused, "Ma Qian", proposed that his number had been stolen. She Chinese, has been working part-time, does not know this research website, and rarely goes online.

According to the first-instance judgment made by the Xingbin District People's Court of Laibin City, Guangxi Province, the court found that Zhang Ming's post "Tiger eye is pulling a rack on WeChat, who dares to use his real name must be attacked by the Internet" and Ma Qian's post "Their information is really rotten, this thing sells me 300 yuan, and I don't want to give it for free" and other remarks, which have insulted or slandered the plaintiff, constituting reputation infringement, and ordered them to continue to publish an apology statement on Zhihu Network for 24 hours, apologize to the plaintiff, eliminate the impact, and compensate the plaintiff for economic losses of 2500 yuan respectively , respectively, compensating the plaintiff for the expenses of 772.5 yuan to stop the infringement.

As soon as the news came out, a large number of netizens went to the online store of the Liberal Arts Examination and Research Network to leave a message to question. "I received hundreds of phone calls and text messages in the morning, all of which were cursed, and those who said they were going to send coffins and scolded my parents, who are the victims of Internet violence?" The person in charge of the online store said in an interview with the media that the Internet storm seriously interfered with their normal operations.

For the causes and consequences of this case, netizens may not know in detail, and the reason for their anger is probably due to the long-term experience of "bad evaluation".

The "good reviews" and "bad reviews" that people are exposed to every day today were born with the emergence of Internet shopping platforms. Different from the "word of mouth" formed by merchants operating in a certain place and passing on the word of mouth of customers in traditional commercial society, "praise" is more like an "information publicity" between consumers, which has become an important part of this business model at the beginning of the birth of online shopping.

Online shopping platforms have the advantage of shortening the market supply chain and relatively low prices, but consumers have a natural distrust of the virtual stores that cannot be touched, stemming from the asymmetry of information. Back more than ten years ago, when we first used the online shopping platform, we all played drums in our hearts, this store is unreliable, will the money be adrift, even if the business qualification has been reviewed and explained by the platform.

Based on the interactive function of the Internet, the emergence of evaluation mechanisms such as "praise" and "bad evaluation" has alleviated the information asymmetry between consumers and operators, and everyone corrects or supplements the business information such as transaction content, operator qualifications and product quality based on consumer experience to reduce the overall cost of trial and error of consumers. On the one hand, "bad reviews" can warn later consumers not to "step on the thunder", on the other hand, it can also encourage and urge businesses to pay attention to improving business and service standards, and play a role in promoting the survival of the fittest.

To this end, the e-commerce law implemented in 2019 stipulates that e-commerce platform operators shall establish and improve the credit appraisal system, publicize the credit appraisal rules, and provide consumers with a way to evaluate the goods sold or services provided within the platform.

Some merchants touched the doorway and hired people to "brush the single" to brush the praise; later there was a small card in the express package - "give the praise immediate cashback × yuan"; and later, consumers hit the middle review, bad review, will be soft and hard bubbles by the merchant, with coupons, refunds in exchange for "delete evaluation". What's more, consumers who do not publish praise will also be bombarded by business information, the content is "Chuchu pitiful", or "the company evaluates strictly, help to beat workers", or "move your fingers, delay for more than ten seconds", followed by auspicious words that do not want money.

Zhang Ming in the aforementioned case mentioned in the post that the candidates who gave negative evaluations were subjected to "Internet violence", which must make netizens feel empathy. Several Screenshots of WeChat chats he provided to the media show that an "old patron" of a suspected liberal arts examination network said a sentence of "cultural examination garbage" in the group, and a user named "Xiaowen Customer Service" posted his WeChat account, avatar and chat records in a 500-person examination and research exchange group. However, these were not determined by the court of first instance. Some lawyers pointed out that because Zhang Ming and "Ma Qian" did not appear in court at the first instance, it may have affected the court's judgment on the validity of relevant evidence.

This is also a major point of dispute in this case, the Civil Code clearly stipulates that civil subjects enjoy the right to reputation, and no organization or individual may infringe on them by insulting, defaming, etc. Whether Zhang Ming and "Ma Qian's" remarks belong to the legitimate bad comments of consumers, or insults and slanders, and whether objectively damage the reputation of businesses and reduce their social evaluation, in the final analysis, it depends on whether there is a relevant factual basis.

Obviously, the court of first instance held that Zhang Ming and others had infringed, which also made most netizens feel that their rights were offended: "Can't say that they are not doing well?" "Who would dare to give a bad review after that?" Both the plaintiff and the defendant in this case have appealed, and it is yet to be confirmed and clarified by the court of second instance on the basis of evidence.

Starting from people's simple emotions, after consumption, the experience is not good, and consumers give "bad reviews" as a matter of course.

Although the law does not explicitly stipulate the "right to evaluate" of consumers, in judicial practice, many judicial organs will include consumers' "bad evaluations" into the "right to supervise goods and services" enjoyed by consumers in the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law to protect them. In similar disputes over the right to reputation, some courts will also cite the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Trial of Cases involving the Right to Reputation, which stipulates that "consumers criticizing or commenting on the product quality or service quality of producers, operators, or sellers shall not be deemed to infringe on the right to reputation of others.".

It can be seen that as long as the "bad evaluation" given by consumers has a factual basis and is a relatively objective and fair evaluation, there is no distortion of facts and deliberate smear, insult and rumor-mongering, it is difficult to constitute an infringement of the right to reputation of the merchant. The so-called innocence of rights protection, bad reviews are reasonable, and there is a point of evidence to say a point. In real cases, there are indeed criminals who threaten to "give bad reviews" and use the rules of the platform to require merchants to give preferential treatment or even free orders. Merchants have to start from in order to have a positive rating.

In this lawsuit about bad reviews, the original intention of the liberal arts examination network is to "eliminate negative impacts and safeguard reputation", and choose to solve it through judicial channels, which is of course worthy of recognition from the point of view of believing in the law. But the reality is that public opinion almost one-sidedly supports Zhang Ming, after all, Zhang Ming is a user of the institution, did pay for the relevant course services, he was sued, it seems to be more solid in the post: "Instead of denouncing bad reviews, it is better to think about whether these problems exist or not." ”

His original post was rarely noticed before, but as netizens complained: "Now the whole network knows that you don't let bad reviews." ”

Source: China Youth Daily