Scenario in PRC

Laws and Regulations

The First Case of Digital Defamation
The case between MAX Computer Station, Inc. (MAX) and an ordinary Beijing citizen named Wang Hung was not only the first online defamation case in China, but also aroused much concerns and discussions among the numerous Internet users in China.

The case can be traced back in 1998. Wang, whose company he worked for bought a computer made by MAX in 1997, had created a personal web page on the Internet and named it as "Indignant with MAX, Protecting the Consumer Rights". There was large number of articles attacking MAX and among one of them even said that the product of MAX was "garbage".

Later in the same year, a magazine and a newspaper reported a story about this article. In result, numerous consumers demanded MAX for refund and the amount reached over 24 million RMB. Thus, MAX sued not only Wang but also the magazine and the newspaper, and demanded compensation equal to 4% of their loss, which means approximately RMB 1 million.

In the first trial on December 15, 1999, the court believed that Wang had deliberately libeled the plaintiff in his website and the two media had also reported defamatory articles against the plaintiff, therefore ruled that Wang needed to compensate RMB 500,000 to the plaintiff and the two media also needed to compensate RMB 240,000 to the plaintiff. Three parties are also needed to publish apology statement to the plaintiff publicly. This was the largest amount of compensation recorded and aroused intense discussions in China (Beijing Morning Post, 1999).

In the second trial in 2000, the court affirmed that Wang needed to stop all kinds of tort of defamation against the plaintiff in the Internet and issue apology statement to the plaintiff in various major Chinese websites. However, the court believed that the economic actual loss of the plaintiff was in lack of evidences, therefore the sum of compensation that Wang needed to pay to the plaintiff was reduced to RMB 90,000. The court also adjudged that the two media that reported Wang's article were misled by incomplete information and therefore they needed not to pay any economic compensation but only an apology (Gao, 2002).