Under a Weibo that was subjected to cyberbullying and asked for help, someone forwarded Tang Xinxin's post in the comment column, and was quickly pushed to the top of the hot comment by netizens, with more than 1,000 likes. The person who shared the post said, "You can ask this person, she just won a [rights protection lawsuit]." ”
At the end of December 2023, Tang Xinxin sued Yao for hanging her photo on Sun Xiaochuan Bar (hereinafter referred to as "Sun Bar"), and the verdict shows that "after the defendant Yao posted, a large number of netizens abused the plaintiff, and the defendant did not delete or manage it in time." This court may find that the defendant has infringed upon the plaintiff's right to reputation and shall bear legal responsibility for infringing on the plaintiff's right to reputation. ”
In June 2023, the photo posted by Tang Xinxin on Xiaohongshu was stolen by Yao and sent to Sun Bar. Malicious intent ensues. In Sun Bar, she was watched, abused, made pornographic rumors, and maliciously retouched by hundreds of people. The first to discover these was a "fan" of Tang Xinxin, who took a screenshot and sent her a private message. That was the first time she had observed Sun Bar up close, "A lot of posts are posts of girls for others to evaluate, and most of the comments in the comment area are very vulgar and obscene." ”
This is not an isolated case. In March 2023, a short video blogger posted a video accusing Sun Bar of having many photos of women portrayed from other social platforms, attracting users to comment and abuse in the comment section. Subsequently, Sun Bar issued an announcement saying that it would carry out the rectification of bad information, "comprehensively investigate the insults and abuses, malicious attacks, false remarks and other information in the bar." We will continue to crack down on bad information. At the same time, Tieba also actively welcomes everyone to report and supervise illegal information. ”
But the rectification did not work. A few months later, when Tang Xinxin was looking for her hanging post at Sun Bar, she also saw many photos of strange girls in it, and their experiences were exactly the same as hers.
We were able to get in touch with a few people whose photos were posted on Sun Bar – they came from different places and shared their photos on social media because of their personal preferences or work needs. Being hung up in Sun Bar is the first time they have experienced large-scale cyberbullying. In anger, they tried to call the police and take legal action, but some succeeded and some failed. Whatever the outcome, this road is one of the few exits for them.
Sun Xiaochuan has posted more than 150 million posts so far (screenshot of Sun Xiaochuan bar)
The girl who was hung in the Sun Bar
Tang Xinxin had heard of Sun Bar for a long time, and she had the impression that it was "quite stinky". She is a college student who started sharing her photos on Xiaohongshu two years ago. In the summer of 2023, after discovering that her photo was posted to Sun Bar, she registered an account to send a private message to the person who posted it, asking to delete the post.
As a result, the other party didn't pay attention to it at all. At the same time, her Xiaohongshu received dozens of private messages and comments, all in crude terms, all abusive and "+3". She simply closed the comment section.
"+3" means that Tieba users will increase 3 experience points every time they post or reply to a post, which is one of the common expressions of Sun Bar. Sun Bar, whose full name is Sun Xiaochuan Bar, was founded with the participation of the "fans" of the game anchor Sun Xiaochuan. In the early days, Tieba was keen to play Sun Xiaochuan's own "stalks", discuss games and life records, but gradually the atmosphere changed, and the bar was full of all kinds of comments. Some bar friends carry posts on different platforms, inviting everyone to play memes and humiliation. In an interview with Southern Weekly, a friend of the bar who has been with Sun Bar for many years once commented on Sun Bar as, "Where people's spirits go to the toilet, users can release all kinds of negative emotions here." ”
Because of a video, Fang Ying was hung up on Sun Bar. When collecting evidence in the bar, she roughly figured out the reason why many girls were hanged, "They specifically looked for people who took pictures of sexy or slightly chubby people in Xiaohongshu, and posted screenshots of people's posts in the post bar." In addition, "they will disguise themselves as foreigners on Xiaohongshu to send private messages to girls, and if the other party replies more politely, they will also be hanged." seems to express that girls are very admiring foreigners, and they can't help but pounce when they see foreigners. ”
The video where Fang Ying was hung up in Sun Bar is about "Girls receiving gifts does not mean agreeing". After being screenshotted to Sun Bar, it caused ridicule from the group. She later posted a video explaining the difference in meaning between boys and girls in the eyes of receiving gifts. was also copied to Sun Bar, "I was scolded as a and said that I created the opposition between men and women."
Now searching for Fang Ying's account nickname in Sun Bar, the results show that there are 240,000 related posts, and there are even Sun Bar friends who have set up a post bar with the same name of her to discuss her words and deeds, with nearly 20,000 followers.
"It seems that the more I respond to them, the more energetic I become, I don't care what the content and the truth are, I just want to find someone to scold me. To this day, Sun Barnei is still updating the discussion post about Fang Ying.
Fang Ying was puzzled, "Why do they pay so much attention to a person they hate?"
"He didn't realize that he was wrong about it"
Almost at the same time as Tang Xinxin, Yangyang found that his photo was also hung on Sun Bar. At that time, she had just played Xiaohongshu, and her "fans" could not count thousand. In the Sun Bar, her photo was retouched into a black and white posthumous photo, and the photo of Ding Zhenzhu was spoofed together. She originally wanted to calm things down, and sent a private message to the poster, asking the other party to delete the post and apologize, but the other party had a bad attitude and said defiantly, "You sue me."
Yangyang's photo was hung (photo provided by the interviewee)
"So I really went and sued them. Yangyang posted a post on Xiaohongshu asking for help, and the advice he received included recording the screen to preserve evidence, calling the police, and taking legal action.
Tang Xinxin also posted a request for help, and someone pointed out Yangyang's experience in the comment area. That's how the two met. With the help of a netizen, Tang Xinxin found the poster's Xiaohongshu account, sent a message to the other party to ask for the deletion of the post and a public apology, and got a "I'm sorry" from the other party.
As for the public apology, the other party said, "It's not necessary, I'll forward it." ”
Tang Xinxin tried to communicate with the person who hung her photo (photo provided by the interviewee)
"He didn't seem to realize that he was wrong. "Negative emotions add up little by little. On the day she found out that she was hanged, Tang Xinxin called the police. "The police said it couldn't be done. She was particularly helpless that day, "not because I was scolded, but because I didn't know how to fight back." She and Yangyang later unanimously decided to take legal proceedings and contacted lawyer Jiang Ying.
Jiang Ying remembers that when she talked to Tang Xinxin for the first time, the other party was not very confident. She wasn't sure she could win. On the other hand, the subject matter of cases such as the protection of reputation rights is relatively small, and in real life, there are indeed not so many people who solve them through litigation. ”
In fact, due to the small amount of money involved, there are very few lawyers willing to take on such cases. Before entrusting Jiang Ying to be his lawyer, Yangyang consulted with several local law firms in Zhejiang, and the answer he got was "not necessary." ”
In July 2023, Jiang Ying drafted indictments for Yangyang and Tang Xinxin respectively. In September, Ms. Tang sued Baidu for obtaining the poster's personal information. In November, the Internet Court held a hearing on the case. In December, the verdict of the case was announced, and Tang Xinxin won the case.
The Hangzhou Internet Court ordered the poster to "apologize publicly at Baidu Sun Xiaochuan Bar to eliminate the impact and restore the plaintiff's reputation, and pay the plaintiff 1,000 yuan for mental damages." Of the three people sued by Yangyang, one has been settled through mediation, one is waiting for the trial, and the last poster has not yet obtained identity information.
Regarding Tang Xinxin's case, Jiang Ying explained: "Although the current law does not have a clear behavior model for Internet reputation infringement, and Yao did not directly make offensive remarks, Yao is a person with normal civil capacity and has the obligation to maintain a civilized online environment. ”
This is the first time Jiang Ying has handled this kind of case. In her view, the two girls are determined to seek legal action because, "after being subjected to pornography and serious personal attacks, [their] emotions need a reasonable way to vent." However, due to the shortage of police resources, the public security often gives priority to handling criminal cases, and the infringers and infringed persons involved in such cases are scattered throughout the country, making it difficult for the public security to accept them. The infringed party can only sue to protect its rights. ”
Time will erase everything?
When the Hangzhou Internet Court opened, Tang Xinxin heard the poster's statement for the first time, "in order to let everyone evaluate (her)".
"I was very angry that he did this, and I had to spend a lot of time and energy defending my rights for no reason. Tang Xinxin said that she understands the victims who have failed to defend their rights. When the case was initially unsolved, she couldn't sleep all night and was diagnosed with mild depression by the hospital, which took a while to relieve it.
Yangyang has also experienced such moments. Shrouded in depression, my mind recalls the whole process over and over again, and I can't eat. In those days when she was haunted by malice, her work also hit the bottom. "They found my accounts on other platforms through Xiaohongshu and kept verbally harassing me. "She was originally a fashion blogger, and she didn't dare to accept advertisements for months, and it wasn't until Sun Barnei's post about her was deleted that the harassment subsided.
Almost all the girls who were hung were harassed by private messages on multiple platforms (photo provided by the interviewee)
In June 2023, the infringer who originally posted Yangyang's photo on Sun Bar filed a pre-trial settlement, with the condition of deleting the post, posting an apology, and compensating for mental damages. The boy was later pulled into a group chat after posting an apology post, and everyone at Sun Bar was scolding him for not being a man enough. He told me that he was going through all this and realized that he was doing something wrong and that he shouldn't have posted me online. Yangyang thought it was funny.
But Fang Ying was not so lucky. When she decided to sue, she searched for advice on Xiaohongshu and saw Yangyang's post. The latter pulled her into a group chat, and there were more than 60 girls in it, most of whom had been hung up in Sun Bar, made pornographic rumors, and been subjected to cyberbullying. So far, this group chat has 90 members, and the conversation is stuck in October 2023. At that time, Fang Ying had just obtained the personal information of several infringers by suing Baidu, and three of the four infringers were minors.
Fang Ying consulted several local lawyers in Chongqing, and they all told her that the odds were not good. Zheng Jingjing, a lawyer who has handled many cases of cyberviolence, said, "In the mainland, the tort liability of minors is generally borne by the guardian. When a minor commits an infringement, the guardian shall perform the duty of guardianship, and the guardian needs to bear the corresponding liability for compensation. ”
In Fang Ying's case, Zheng Jingjing suggested, "After the infringed party obtains the identity information of the infringer, he can ask the court or lawyer to send a letter to the local police station to request assistance in the investigation, which needs to be communicated." However, at the level of judicial practice, "the court may be reluctant to accept a personality dispute case like online infringement because there are too many people sued by the infringer, and the court may be reluctant to accept it." Therefore, it is necessary for the infringed party to carefully select one or two people to sue and communicate patiently. ”
When the case was heard for the second time in the Internet Court, Fang Ying learned the identities of the four infringers, and was clearly told that "minors cannot sue".
The judge advised her to try to call the police at the infringer's location, or forget it, "Time will erase everything." ”
Fang Ying summed it up and called the police again in Chongqing. The police said the same thing as the judge, "If you find the police, you can only give them (the juvenile infringer) a verbal warning, and they may shut down the [named] post bar, but maybe they will come back after a while." Am I going to have to sue again and do these things over and over again?"
grow
But because of this prosecution, Fang Ying was "opened" by Sun Bar instead. She also learned about this matter by a private message from a "fan". "A girl sent me a private message saying that she saw my account name in an overseas group chat that sold personal information, with my ID card, mobile phone number and home address underneath. ”
At that time, Fang Ying received many harassing phone calls. Someone found her WeChat through her mobile phone number and cursed her in the dialog box to add friends, someone transferred 0.1 yuan a day to her through Alipay, and there were death threatening text messages. She took a screenshot of it all.
A large number of harassing messages are vulgar and vulgar (photo provided by the interviewee)
And the girl who sent a private message, "She shared her daily life on Xiaohongshu, and her face was never revealed." Because a sister was scolded for saying that the money was not clean, she helped to say a few words, and she was doxxed. ”
Sometimes Fang Ying was angry and scolded back, but the other party was even more energetic. Another time, she clicked on the homepage of the social platform of the person who made pornographic rumors for her, and quickly found the other party's girlfriend. She sent a private message reminding the other party to be careful. After the other party asked her to provide evidence, he apologized to her again and again.
This kind of thing happened more than once, and in the end, it was the other party's girlfriend who apologized.
Fang Ying decided to forget it. In the face of countless people, "even if I catch a successful defender, he apologizes to me, loses some money, and another person will come out." These things are quite tiring. ”
When she made a video again, she was more cautious about the content she output, "Try to avoid discussing the relationship between men and women, and you can't mention men, in their (Sun Barren) opinion, these are engaging in gender antagonism." ”
But to this day, she is still hanging. In mid-January 2024, she started a live broadcast for the first time, and at one o'clock in the morning, more than 10,000 people were instantly crowded in the live broadcast room. This live broadcast was later highly discussed in Sun Bar, and Sun Bar people said that she played with the traffic password.
Sometimes, she wondered if she shouldn't have responded and sued in the first place, "In that case, would they hang me up once and then ignore me?"
Another dilemma in protecting the right to online reputation is that even at a time when real-name is very common on the Internet, there are still some accounts that are not real-named, and the actual infringers are hidden behind false identities. This is also the situation that Yangyang is facing. "It's an awkward dilemma. Zheng Jingjing said, "In the end, it came back to the question of whether the Internet should have a real name." From the perspective of infringement and rights protection, social platforms should require everyone's real name. But from another point of view, many people advocate the protection of users' personal privacy, believing that anonymity is the fun of the Internet. ”
In any case, Fang Ying decided to turn the page on this matter. She said that being hung up on her grandson is not all setbacks, but also growth, "Remind me to be more serious about making videos in the future." "Growth – that's what all the interviewees would mention in their interviews.
For example, Yangyang feels that he is stronger, "I used to be a bit of a people-pleasing personality, and I always swallowed my anger when I was wronged. After being hung up on the grandson, there was a time when a business she was connected with at work "slut shaming" her in a work group chat, and she directly communicated with the person in charge of her company, asking "them to be responsible for their corporate image". Yangyang said, "Now I'm not a soft bun." ”
(At the request of the interviewee, Tang Xinxin, Yang Yang, and Fang Ying are pseudonyms)
Reporter Wang Jiawei of Southern People Weekly
Editor-in-charge: Li Tuimao