When will the "keyboard man" internet violence be suspended Industry insiders have suggested the introduction of an anti-network violence law

When will the "keyboard man" online violence end

Industry insiders suggest the introduction of an anti-online violence law to prevent online violence

□ Zhao Chenxi, a reporter of this newspaper

"The sun shines on the sea, and I belong to the sea. From here, he ended his life and took away the most beautiful scenery in the world. After posting a long Microblog titled "Born Light, Time is Also Net" at 0:02 on January 24, Liu Mouzhou, a 17-year-old boy from Xingtai City, Hebei Province, died of swallowing a large number of antidepressants and finally died of ineffective rescue.

In this Weibo, Liu Mouzhou recalled his tragic experiences from birth to the present: he was sold by his biological parents at birth, his adoptive parents died when he was 4 years old, he was bullied by his classmates during his studies, and after searching for relatives on the Internet, he was blocked by his birth mother because of the "purchase of a house"...

"A lot of people came to scold me, satirize me, frame me, slander me, make comments and personal attacks on me." Liu Mouzhou became popular on the Internet because of his search for relatives, and online violence may have become the last straw that crushed the teenager.

Liu Mouzhou is not the first victim to choose to take his own life because of the Internet violence. In the Internet era, people's access to information is becoming more and more convenient, which also leads to more and more people who like to "judge the head" about other people's affairs, and there are many "keyboard men" who "look at the hilarity and are not too big" to use online comments to reverse black and white and create topics.

"Where the Internet is illegal, the current national regulations on online violence are scattered in many laws and relevant regulations, and consideration should be given to summarizing them and introducing special legislation." Mao Hongtao, deputy director of Beijing Deheheng Law Firm, said in a recent interview with the "Rule of Law Daily" reporter that purifying the network environment and eliminating online violence requires the whole society to raise awareness, and it is even more necessary to use legal means to restrain it.

Cyberbullying can be implicated in a variety of crimes

Now open Liu Mouzhou's Weibo, the comment area is full of netizens' thoughts and regrets about the loss of life, and the comments that were once keen to question and accuse are difficult to trace. "At this end of the scale of life is a living life; at the other end, it is a bunch of empty accounts." A netizen's comment is a true portrayal of online violence.

"Cyberbullying is not a legal concept, and the usual international term is cyberbullying. At present, there is no uniform academic definition of the concept of online violence, which generally refers to the use of the Internet as a medium to publish speeches, pictures, videos and other acts that cause damage to the reputation and spirit of others by fabricating facts or unjustifiable insults. Liu Deliang, a professor at the Law School of Beijing Normal University and director of the Asia-Pacific Network Law Research Center, pointed out that online violence is essentially a tort, covering a variety of illegal acts, including online defamation, human flesh search, network harassment, etc. With the development of Internet technology and the rise of various social platforms, the problem of online violence has become more prominent, and the consequences caused by Internet violence have become more and more serious.

In the impression of many people, online posts are "not legally responsible", but Mao Hongtao reminded that online violence may be suspected of a variety of crimes. Taking the criminal law system as an example, those who openly insult or fabricate facts to slander others on the Internet may be suspected of the crime of insult or defamation; using the Internet to conduct human flesh searches and expose citizens' private information may be suspected of infringing on citizens' personal information; those who create rumors on the Internet, spread false statements, and seriously disrupt social and public order may be suspected of picking quarrels and provoking troubles.

In addition to criminal liability, online violence may also involve civil tort liability such as the right to reputation and the right to privacy, and article 42 of the Public Security Administration Punishment Law stipulates that whoever openly insults others or fabricates facts to slander others shall be detained for not more than five days or fined not more than 500 yuan; if the circumstances are more serious, he shall be detained for not less than five days but not more than ten days, and may also be fined not more than 500 yuan.

Increase efforts to punish acts of online violence

Before the Liu Mouzhou incident, the two cases involving online violence that had a greater impact in the past two years were the suicide case of female doctors in Deyang after suffering from online violence and the case of Hangzhou women taking express delivery and rumors and defamation, and the defendants in both cases have been punished by law in 2021.

The Hangzhou woman's rumor-mongering case was pronounced in April 2021, and the defendants Lang XX and He XX were sentenced to one year's imprisonment and two years' probation for defamation, respectively. The deyang female doctor case was pronounced in August 2021, and the court found that the actions of the three defendants had constituted the crime of insult, and sentenced the defendant Chang X to one year and six months in prison; Chang X to one year and six months in prison; Chang X to one year imprisonment with a two-year suspended sentence; and Sun X to six months' imprisonment with a one-year suspended sentence.

Although the Internet rioters have been punished by law, combined with the consequences of the incident to the parties, many netizens believe that the punishment is too light and it is difficult to effectively curb and deter online violence.

The Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases Involving the Use of Information Networks to Commit Defamation, which came into effect on September 10, 2013, stipulates that if the same defamatory information is actually clicked or viewed more than 5,000 times, or the number of times it is forwarded more than 500 times, it shall be found to be "serious circumstances" as provided for in the first paragraph of Article 246 of the Criminal Law, constituting the crime of defamation.

According to Article 246 of the Criminal Law, the crime of insult or defamation refers to the act of openly insulting another person by violence or other means or fabricating facts to slander another person, and if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention, public surveillance or deprivation of political rights.

This article also stipulates that the crimes of insult and defamation are cases of "telling before dealing", that is, the victim is required to file a criminal private prosecution, except for those that seriously endanger social order and the interests of the State.

This means that the criminal liability most closely linked to online violence generally requires the parties to file their own criminal private prosecutions, and even if the defendant is finally convicted, the sentence will not exceed three years.

"The low cost of breaking the law and the high cost of rights protection have become an important reason for the intensification of online violence." Liu Deliang pointed out that the network environment has the characteristics of openness, virtuality, anonymity, etc., compared with offline insults and defamations, the insults and defamation acts carried out by means of online platforms are obviously much greater in terms of dissemination and harm, and the impact on victims is also difficult to eliminate.

In this regard, Liu Deliang suggested increasing the punishment for acts of online violence, for example, in the criminal law's insult and defamation provisions, it is possible to add a provision that uses information networks to slander or insult others, and should be given heavier punishments.

Mao Hongtao believes that in the face of increasingly fierce acts of online violence, the current three-year prison sentence for insult and defamation in the criminal law is indeed difficult to meet the people's expectations for fairness and justice and the practical needs of cracking down on online violent crimes. He suggested adding a sentencing grade of "particularly serious circumstances" to the crime of insult and defamation, and allocating an upgraded sentence of "fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years" to reflect the deterrent power of the criminal law.

In response to the provision of "telling before dealing with", Jiang Tao, vice president of the China Institute of Rule of Law Modernization at Nanjing Normal University, believes that consideration could be given to amending the provisions of the Criminal Law that the crime of defamation is a crime of private prosecution, and the crime of defamation is stipulated as a public prosecution crime in specific circumstances. For example, in the case of the private prosecutor's consent or the private prosecutor's difficulty in collecting evidence, the public security organ exercises the investigative power of the crime of defamation, and the procuratorial organ initiates a public prosecution with the court.

Special legislation against online violence is proposed

At present, the mainland does not have a special law specifically aimed at online violence, and the provisions on online violence are scattered in legal norms such as the Civil Code, the Criminal Law, the Public Security Administration Punishment Law, the Cybersecurity Law, and the Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Civil Dispute Cases Involving the Use of Information Networks to Infringe on Personal Rights and Interests.

In Mao Hongtao's view, these regulations are relatively fragmented and unsystematic, and there is a lack of coordination between laws and regulations, making it difficult to deal with very complex and increasingly serious online violence. He suggested the promulgation of a special anti-online violence law to further clarify the civil liability, public security punishment and criminal liability for online violence violations, and to raise the legal awareness and rights protection concept of anti-online violence in the whole society.

Jiang Tao also believes that we should consider adopting specialized and systematic centralized legislation to deal with online violence, and through the formulation of a unified anti-network violence law, we should achieve an effective connection between civil, administrative and criminal liability.

In Jiang Tao's view, this special anti-network violence legislation should make specific and clear provisions on the prevention and punishment of online violence. These should include: establishing the types and judgment standards of online violence, clarifying the content and form of online violence; defining the boundaries between criminal law and other laws such as civil law and economic law; and standardizing the form of granting powers against online violence, the procedures for exercising them, and the scope of application.

Compared with the introduction of special legislation, Liu Deliang believes that it is more urgent to strengthen the responsibility of platform prior review.

"The after-the-fact remedies adopted by traditional laws and regulations are not fully adapted to changes in the network field." Liu Deliang pointed out that the cost of follow-up dissemination of information in the Internet era is extremely low, it is more difficult to control follow-up dissemination, and the way of relief after the fact is no longer in line with the law of information dissemination in the Internet age.

Liu Deliang suggested a combination of prior prevention and after-the-fact relief. The dissemination of network information is inseparable from the network platform, so it is necessary to start from the regulation of the network platform, in the future, the responsibility of the platform should be clarified in the law in advance, and the pictures, text, voice, etc. should be identified through artificial intelligence and other means, and the obvious illegal infringement information should be filtered, and for other relatively hidden infringement information, the platform can take measures such as deletion, blocking, and disconnection after notification by the victim.

"Although platforms are now also called upon to fulfill their obligations of prior review, many platforms are neglected to manage because there is no clear provision in the current law." It is necessary to improve legislation, make clear provisions in the law, and consolidate the responsibilities of the platform. While calling for strengthening platform supervision, Liu Deliang hopes to strictly implement the network real-name system so that the "keyboard man" is no longer unscrupulous.

Source: Rule of Law Daily