As the manager of the group, the owner and administrator of the WeChat group have the right to "kick people" given by the platform. But what should a member do if they want to join the group after being kicked out of the group? What if the group owner disagrees? Can I sue the group owner for this? Can I get compensation if I hurt my self-esteem if I am kicked out? Not long ago, someone really went to court with the group administrator who "kicked people" for this.
Recently, the Beijing Fourth Intermediate People's Court concluded a case involving group chat kicking in the second instance, after the owner of a community was "kicked out" of the owner group for "passionate speech" in the group, he sued the group owner and administrator to restore the group membership, and compensated him for mental losses of 1 yuan and 2 yuan respectively, and the court rejected the lawsuit.
Case review
Part of Xu's speech in the group chat
Yan and Zheng are the directors and members of the owners' committee of a community, and they are also the group owners and administrators of the WeChat group of the owners of the community. One evening, Xu, the owner of the community, suspected that the property committee was not acting in accordance with the law, so he left a message in the owner's WeChat group, requesting that the list of members of the property committee be publicized. In the course of the group chat, Xu gradually had disputes with many owners, and began to "speak passionately" in the group, using insulting and threatening remarks such as "stupid", "low", "impersonal", "stinky in the gutter", "turning back and reckoning" to attack others.
The content of the speeches of other owners in the group
The administrator, Zheng, believed that the owner Xu's remarks violated the group rules and group announcements, so he removed Xu from the group chat. After being removed from the group chat, Xu complained to the group owner Yan about the matter and asked to rejoin the group, but Yan refused and blocked him.
Administrator Zheng removed Xu from the group chat
Xu was not convinced, believing that the administrator Zheng kicked him out of the group chat and the group owner Yan refused to rejoin the behavior violated his right to identity as the owner of the community, made him humiliated in front of other owners, and derogated his personality. As a result, Xu sued Yan and Zheng to the court, asking the court to make a judgment to restore their group membership, and Yan and Zheng should also apologize to them and pay them one yuan and two yuan respectively for mental damages.
Trial
After trial, the court of first instance held that the case did not fall within the scope of civil litigation accepted by the people's court. First of all, according to Article 9 of the Provisions on the Administration of Internet Group Information Services, group administrators should promptly stop and manage the intensification of exchanges and disputes between group members and the use of insulting language with each other, so as to maintain a harmonious and stable group order. In this case, the removal of Xu, who the administrator Zheng thought was inappropriate, from the group chat was an application of the autonomy rules of "whoever establishes the group is responsible" and "whoever manages is responsible" in the Internet group. The act should be an act of social interaction and friendship, and should not give rise to a civil legal relationship. Second, Yan and Zheng did not publish insulting or defamatory content against Xu in the group, and there was no evidence to prove that the remarks of other members in the group were instructed by Yan and Zheng, so it did not constitute an infringement of their right to reputation. In summary, Xu's removal from the group does not constitute a statutory cause for initiating a civil lawsuit for infringement, and does not fall within the scope of civil litigation accepted by the people's court. In the end, the court of first instance ruled to dismiss Xu's lawsuit. Xu was dissatisfied and appealed.
The Beijing No. 4 Intermediate People's Court held in the second instance that WeChat groups are communication platforms established by natural persons through the Internet based on certain social relationships. The group owner and group administrator of the WeChat group have the right to choose the group members independently, and the behaviors such as joining the group, leaving the group, and removing from the group are all autonomous acts between members, which belong to the category of social interactions, and the acts do not create or change civil legal relations, and the disputes arising from such acts do not belong to the scope of civil legal adjustment. Therefore, the court of first instance found that Xu's removal from the WeChat group did not fall within the scope of the people's court's acceptance of civil litigation, and it was not improper to reject Xu's lawsuit. Therefore, the Beijing No. 4 Intermediate People's Court rejected Xu's appeal and upheld the original ruling.
What the judge said
Article 2 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China stipulates that the Civil Law regulates the personal and property relations between natural persons, legal persons and unincorporated organizations that are equal subjects. Therefore, not all the relationships between equal subjects are regulated by the civil law, and acts of friendship and autonomy are not the objects of civil law adjustment, and cannot be resolved by litigation, but can be adjusted by the norms of social interaction. The reasonable demarcation of the boundaries of the court's judicial power is not only an expression of full respect for the space for social autonomy, but also a requirement for the rational allocation of judicial resources.
In recent years, with the vigorous development of Internet information technology, the group management behavior of social platforms such as WeChat, especially the "kicking" of community owners and property groups, has caused a lot of disputes and rights protection, and some "kicked" have taken the "kickers" to court. In this case, Yan and Zheng, as group leaders and administrators, avoided further intensification of conflicts between group members, which was conducive to maintaining a harmonious and stable group order, and was a correct manifestation of the performance of the duties of group administrators. On the basis of clarifying the nature of the corresponding management behaviors of group managers, this case confirmed that the behaviors of joining the group, leaving the group, removing from the group, dissolving the group, and corresponding management are all autonomous acts among members, which belong to the scope of social communication and do not fall within the scope of civil litigation, which draws a clear line for the scope of autonomy in the network society and the boundary between the intervention of judicial power in the life of the network society.
Contributed by Beijing No. 4 Intermediate People's Court
Editor: Yuan Tianhe, Xiao Fei
Review: Wang Fang