In June 2017, a nanny arson incident in Hangzhou killed a mother and three children, causing widespread concern. After the incident, there was a voice saying that "Lin Shengbin, the husband of the murdered hostess, is suspected of committing the crime", and Lin Shengbin told the media at the time that in the early morning of the day of the crime, he flew from Guangzhou to Hangzhou by plane and was not at the scene of the crime.
Director and writer Liu Xinda has been following the case for a long time and is skeptical of Lin Shengbin's above remarks. In September 2021, Liu Xinda checked Lin Shengbin's travel records with a number of airlines, saying that none of them found that he had flight records in June 2017. After that, he posted the call recording of the query Lin Shengbin's flight record on Weibo.
▲ Lin Shengbin
In May 2022, Lin Shengbin took Liu Xinda and the operating company of the Weibo platform to court. In January, a court ruled that Mr. Liu had violated Mr. Lin's privacy. Liu Xinda was dissatisfied with the verdict, believing that his inquiry and publication of Lin Shengbin's travel records was legitimate public opinion supervision, so he appealed.
Recently, Liu Xinda received a summons from the Beijing No. 4 Intermediate People's Court, and the court notified him to have a conversation on May 6 about the relevant online infringement liability dispute.
After inquiring about Lin Shengbin's travel records
Liu Xinda posted a recording of the call with the airline on Weibo
On the morning of November 19, 2021, Liu Xinda posted a message on his Weibo account with millions of followers: "Liu Xinda has called all airlines, including China Eastern Airlines, Air China, China Southern Airlines, etc., and on June 22, 2017 and a few days ago, there was no record of Lin Shengbin's flight, that is, during the arson case, Lin Shengbin said that he was completely lying about his business trip in Guangzhou." ”
That evening, Liu Xinda posted on Weibo again that "China Eastern Airlines did not find Lin Shengbin's flight records in June 2017", and attached a recording of a call between him and China Eastern Airlines staff, which lasted 11 minutes and 52 seconds. The call recording shows that Liu Xinda said to the staff of China Eastern Airlines, "I will check Lin Shengbin's flight records in June 2017", and after the airline staff replied that "there was no record in June 2017", Liu Xinda continued to inquire about Lin Shengbin's flight records from 2015 to 2021, and the other party replied with the itinerary information for the above time period.
Soon, netizens discovered that the Weibo with the recording was no longer visible. The next morning, Liu Xinda posted on Weibo that he did not delete the recording of China Eastern Airlines, but only temporarily set the recording to be visible only to himself.
According to the judicial materials obtained by Red Star News, an earlier recording of a call between Liu Xinda and the staff of China Eastern Airlines shows that Liu Xinda said that "there are still a few friends who want to check it together", saying that in order to check the status of flight mileage points, Lin Shengbin's name and ID number were reported, and multiple addresses were reported for identity verification.
Liu Xinda told Red Star News that Lin Shengbin's identity information was provided by netizens, and he posted the recording of the call with China Eastern Airlines on the Internet at that time to "expose Lin Shengbin's lies". At the same time, he also reported the relevant situation to the judicial authorities with his real name.
In August 2021, the Hangzhou Municipal Joint Investigation Team issued a notice stating that after investigation in accordance with the law, no facts were found that Lin Shengbin participated in the planning and implementation of the "Blue Qianjiang Arson Case".
Lin Shengbin sued:
Liu Xinda and the Weibo platform operating company are co-defendants
In May 2022, Lin Shengbin took China Eastern Airlines Co., Ltd. and Beijing Weimeng Chuangke Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Weimeng"), the operating company of the Weibo platform, to court. During the trial, Lin Shengbin applied to add Liu Xinda as a co-defendant and withdrew the lawsuit against China Eastern Airlines Co., Ltd.
Lin Shengbin claimed that Liu Xinda was suspected of seriously infringing on the plaintiff's privacy by publishing audio recordings illegally obtained by him on the Weibo platform containing important information about the plaintiff's itinerary, and requested that the defendant be ordered to make a public apology and compensate the plaintiff 200,000 yuan for mental damages.
Lin Shengbin also claimed that WeDream should establish an effective content management system based on the characteristics of the platform itself to avoid the dissemination of illegal information on the platform, but in this case, it failed to fulfill its obligations as a super Internet platform operator and should be jointly and severally liable for the expansion of the plaintiff's losses.
Liu Xinda argued that the "Hangzhou Nanny Arson Case" once attracted widespread attention, and that as a writer with a membership card of the Chinese Writers Association, he had the right to interview and the right to know about public events, and that the recording of the interview with China Eastern Airlines in his Weibo account was set to "visible only to himself" 30 minutes after it was published, and there was no impact or drainage.
The court held that the alleged infringing remarks were past flight records, and although it was less likely to detect and intrude on the private activities of others than the itinerary information of the upcoming flight, it could be seen from the available evidence that the above-mentioned itinerary information was a private life activity that the plaintiff did not want others to know, and could reflect the plaintiff's personal life trajectory and was private information. The plaintiff has the right to privacy with respect to the above information, and the relevant rights are protected by national laws.
The court held that although the defendant defended that it was exercising the right to interview writers, when it communicated with China Eastern Airlines, it did not indicate its identity as a writer or present relevant documents, but learned from China Eastern Airlines through the unauthorized acquisition of the plaintiff's identity information, the identity of the plaintiff's friend, and the fictitious way of inquiring about travel points. The method of obtaining the information was not a lawful source such as conducting normal interviews, and it can be seen that the defendant clearly knew that the source of his information was not a normal and lawful channel when he publicly released the information involved in the case.
The court held that although the defendant defended that it was exercising its right to interview, know and supervise public events, it published the plaintiff's private information on the public network when it knew that the information involved in the case was not from a legal source and far exceeded the scope of the public event, which constituted an infringement of the plaintiff's privacy.
In January this year, the Beijing Internet Court ruled that Liu Xinda used the account that posted the infringing content on the corresponding online platform to apologize to Lin Shengbin, and put it on the top for no less than 72 hours to eliminate the impact, and compensated Lin Shengbin 8,000 yuan for mental damage and 30,000 yuan for rights protection costs.
Liu Xinda appealed:
applied to the court to summon Lin Shengbin to appear in court
After the first-instance verdict was announced, Liu Xinda was dissatisfied with the verdict and appealed. He believes that his inquiry and publication of Lin Shengbin's travel records is legitimate public opinion supervision and does not constitute an infringement of privacy.
In his appeal, Liu Xinda said that personal privacy refers to the secrets that citizens do not want to disclose or know for others in their personal lives, and these secrets have nothing to do with the interests of others and the public interest. The disclosure of the secret will cause harm to the parties, so the law will protect the privacy of individuals, "but when there is a conflict between personal privacy and the public interest, the public interest shall be resolved first." Once personal privacy endangers the interests of society, personal privacy should not be protected by law. Liu Xinda said that Lin Shengbin's travel records at that time were related to major criminal cases and did not belong to personal privacy.
In response to the first-instance verdict's suggestion that "the method of obtaining information does not belong to the implementation of normal interviews", Liu Xinda appealed, saying: "If interviewing without using a real identity is a violation of the privacy of others, then it is a violation of personal privacy for a media reporter to have to conceal his true identity in order to get the truth of the matter? If I use my real identity to go to the airline to learn about the situation, I will definitely not learn anything." ”
Recently, Liu Xinda told Red Star News that he had applied to the court to summon the appellee Lin Shengbin to appear in court during the second instance. "This case was caused by Lin Shengbin's belief that the appellant had violated his right to privacy, and he had a strong personal dependence, so both parties must appear in court to be questioned by the court in order to better ascertain the facts of the case, and cannot rely entirely on the agent's statement. ”
On April 25, Red Star News tried to contact Lin Shengbin to learn about the civil case, but the phone could not be connected. On the same day, Red Star News contacted Lin Shengbin's lawyer, but the other party did not respond to whether Lin Shengbin would appear in court at the second trial. The lawyer also said that the case is still in the second instance, and it is inconvenient to disclose specific information.
Source: Red Star News