planting, unboxing, trial, avoiding pitfalls, red and black lists... "Read reviews before buying" has become the consumption habit of many young groups, and review videos have quickly become the "traffic password" of social platforms, covering the United States and the United States. Makeup, digital, food, clothing and other major fields.
Recently, the Suzhou Internet Court heard a case involving a reputation dispute arising from evaluation. A review blogger did not purchase or experience the product of the blogger who carried the product, but made comments in the review video, claiming "Why are big internet celebrities selling products so bottomless?" and "Do you know how many Chinese people have been harmed by this kind of thing?" The video also contains negative comments such as portraits of bloggers carrying goods and insulting language. The court ruled that there was infringement and required the two defendants to make a public apology and compensate for economic losses.
Negative review without purchase
The plaintiff Yu is a big V who is engaged in self-media and e-commerce live broadcasting, with more than 30 million fans on the entire network. From May to August 2023, a review blogger with more than 300,000 followers, "A certain mattress talks about sleep", released a series of evaluation videos for latex mattresses, latex pillows and other products promoted by Yu in his live broadcast. .
Among them, on May 4, 2023, "A certain mattress talks about sleep" released a video with the work description as "Please continue to bring value to your fans instead of selling garbage latex! #latex dust hazard#", not only uses It also included a photo of Yu XX, including "How an Internet celebrity with tens of millions of fans eats and crawls inside and out", "Do you know how many Chinese people have been harmed by this kind of thing", "Selling garbage brings garbage to consumers." etc. content. On May 12 and August 6, 2023, the account successively posted: "There are so many latex pillow products sold on the entire Internet, and even ten Thailand can't make them." "Are big Internet celebrities so short of money? They are cutting off consumers." Leek'" and other content. After the
defendant's video was released, it not only received more than 3,000 likes, and more than 900 comments and shares, but also appeared in the comment area, "It's disgusting to watch" and "This guy wants any money, dirty money, please cancel it" "That guy has no bottom line" and other negative comments. After investigation, it was found that the evaluation account was operated by a mattress company in Suzhou and was recorded by its legal representative Jiang.
The plaintiff filed a lawsuit with the Suzhou Internet Court, requesting the defendant to immediately stop fabricating, disseminating, and publishing information and videos that insulted and defamed the plaintiff and other activities that infringed on the plaintiff's reputation, and to publish them prominently in nationally distributed newspapers and on the defendant's video account. Apology letter, apology video, etc., and also requested the court to order the defendant to compensate the plaintiff for economic losses of 100,000 yuan.
Yu held during the trial that there was no authoritative evidence to prove that latex products were junk products. Jiang and his company also had no corresponding experimental data to prove the hazards of latex, and there was no evidence or regulations prohibiting the sale of latex products by the state. Jiang and his company fabricated and distorted facts and used insulting words. The above behaviors have constituted an infringement of their reputation and portrait rights.
Jiang and his company argued that they were not at fault subjectively. They believed that the plaintiff publicly published a promotional video and the defendant immediately evaluated it after seeing it, which was in line with the communication laws of the current Internet era and could not prove the existence of subjective malice. It also argued that although no special experiments were conducted for professional support, a lot of dust was generated during the disassembly of latex mattresses, and consumers who have used latex mattresses suspected that rhinitis and skin diseases were caused by mattresses. He believes that his remarks are legitimate acts of exercising public opinion supervision for the public interest.
Evaluations should be realistic.
The court held that the Civil Code stipulates that if an actor carries out news reporting, public opinion supervision and other activities for the public interest and affects the reputation of others, he will not bear civil liability, but he should abide by the premise of reasonable limits and truthfulness, otherwise he should be borne according to law. Tort Liability. This provision provides a basis for exemption from liability for self-media practitioners such as the original defendant in this case to conduct public opinion supervision based on public interests, but the remarks they publish should be objective, fair and realistic.
The court also held that public figures have a higher duty of tolerance.Based on the principle of giving priority to public interests, in order to protect citizens’ rights to know and supervise public opinion, safeguard social public interests, and ensure that citizens enjoy full freedom of speech in debates involving public affairs, public figures should have a certain degree of tolerance for criticism and accusations from others. , this is the tolerant obligation to protect the personality rights of public figures. The plaintiff is a well-known blogger with tens of millions of fans. He is a public figure with a certain degree of popularity and influence. Therefore, in terms of accepting the supervision of public opinion and satisfying the public's right to know, his corresponding personality rights are restricted and he has a higher obligation of tolerance.
The court pointed out in the judgment that in this case, Jiang made negative comments such as "junk" about the latex mattress sold by so-and-so in the video, which was not based on his own evaluation or experience, and lacked possible understanding of the situation. The necessary investigation into the controversial content failed to fulfill the duty of due care. Among them, the remarks of "junk blogger" and "no bottom line" were intentionally damaging to reputation and contained obvious faults. They objectively lowered Yu's social evaluation and constituted an infringement of reputation rights. At the same time, Jiang’s unauthorized use of someone’s portrait in the video constitutes an infringement of portrait rights and should also bear corresponding infringement liability.
The court held that a mattress company in Suzhou was the operator of the evaluation account involved in the case, and Jiang was the one who appeared in the video involved in the case. The two defendants were directly involved in the release of the video involved in the case, which constituted joint infringement and should bear joint and several liability. The accounts operated by the original defendant in this case all have a large number of followers. The defendant claimed that the three videos involved in the case were released to implement public opinion supervision for the public interest, but the content of the videos exceeded the reasonable limits that should be followed for the implementation of public opinion supervision, and clicked after the release The number of likes, comments, and shares was large, and its spread was wide, triggering many negative comments about the plaintiff.
The court took into account the popularity of the parties, the degree of subjective fault of the two defendants, the degree, scope and consequences of the infringement, and ruled that Jiang and his company immediately stopped the infringement, publicly apologized and compensated XX for economic losses of 23,000 yuan.
scientific and transparent public evaluation
evaluation bloggers should explain product performance, quality, pros and cons to consumers through product testing, comparison, and experience, and provide consumers with reasonable and objective consumption guidance. However, driven by the "traffic password", it is not uncommon for some review bloggers to publish untrue, exaggerated, and deliberately derogatory reviews in order to attract traffic or promote product cooperation, which has caused many disputes.
After the verdict of this case, the judge made three suggestions to the review bloggers: First, when publishing review content, review bloggers should base their evaluation on real usage, and the evaluation method should be scientific, transparent, and open, and provide feedback on their objective and neutral usage experience. , avoid making unfounded, over-exaggerated, deliberately derogatory or even insulting expressions and evaluations; secondly, if there are commercial promotion activities such as product promotion and advertising, evaluation bloggers should also make it clear through evaluation content, pinned evaluations, etc., to avoid using evaluations as In the name of "cutting off fans", it will affect the goodwill of itself and the products it promotes; thirdly, if the evaluation content overlaps with the business "track" of itself or its affiliated companies, in the horizontal evaluation of similar products, it should avoid taking one-sided measures to highlight its own advantages. , direct comparison methods that spread the disadvantages of competitors, highlight the competitive advantages of one's own products, and beware of falling into the legal whirlpool of unfair competition.
(Source: Rule of Law Daily)
