Publishing negative information about many companies and committing extortion in the name of paying "public relations fees", how should companies deal with "paid deletion of posts"? "In the past, we always swallowed our anger when encountering this kind of thing. After this case,

publishes negative information about many companies, and in fact engages in extortion in the name of paying "public relations fees". How should companies deal with "paid deletion of posts"? "In the past, we always swallowed hard when encountering this kind of thing. After this case, we feel that only the law can truly protect the rights and interests of our company!"

On June 24, 2022, the Haizhou District Procuratorate prosecuted Song on suspicion of extortion. Public prosecution

The prosecutor talked about Song’s extortion case at the special lecture on the rule of law. Song used self-media to publish negative information about companies and deleted posts for a fee in the name of public relations fees, but in fact he was extorting money from many companies. After a public prosecution was launched by the Haizhou District Procuratorate of Lianyungang City, on December 28, 2023, the court sentenced the defendant Song to 11 years in prison for extortion in the first instance, and was fined 200,000 yuan, and ordered to refund the total losses of multiple victim units. More than 1.5 million yuan. After the verdict was announced, Song refused to accept the verdict and filed an appeal. On April 16, 2024, the Lianyungang Intermediate Court ruled to reject the appeal and uphold the original verdict.

In 2019, Song joined a certain company. In his spare time, he collected industry information about his company and created a WeChat public account "aaa Storytelling" (pseudonym) to mainly publish some industry-related information. At first, the newly created WeChat official account had little popularity. As Song learned more and more about the inside story of the industry, the content he published gradually involved deeper industry information, and the number of fans of the official account gradually increased to more than 60,000. And most of them are industry insiders.

At this time, Song came up with the idea of ​​"making money" through the WeChat public account. Song believes that "revealing news" in some industries, no matter whether the content is true or false, will often affect the corporate image and even the company's stock price as long as it is published. This is the "weakness" of well-known companies, and deleting posts is the fastest way to solve the problem. The method is that as long as some negative "revelations" are released, the relevant companies will definitely come to coordinate the deletion, and they can take the opportunity to charge fees.

In early 2021, Song began to publish so-called "explosive" information on the WeChat public account, and a company contacted him to delete the post. "The essential skill for the leadership of this company is pua (full name pick-upartist, meaning 'pick-up artist', commonly known as 'love master', here refers to the mental control of subordinates by superiors in the workplace through talking skills), do you understand?" 2021 One day in April 2018, Song published an article on the WeChat public account. Although he did not mention the company by name, fans and industry insiders could tell at a glance that Song was talking about a certain company. Shortly after the article was published, the company's staff contacted Song and asked him to delete the article.

"I have mastered a large amount of explosive materials about the company. As long as you sign a public relations contract with me and pay the fee, you can delete it. I will no longer publish negative reports about the company in the future." Faced with the company's request, Song said. He even sent a message to the staff member saying, "If the money is not paid, the article will not be withdrawn", "Look, other companies have already signed contracts with me" and so on. Under Song's various explicit and implicit instructions, the company finally signed a "public relations contract" with a term of two years and paid a "service fee" of 300,000 yuan.

In this way, Song specifically collected and published negative information about many well-known companies, and forced the victim companies to contact him and sign a "public relations contract" between January and October 2021. The contract fee ranged from 120,000 yuan to 700,000 yuan. wait. Even after a certain company paid money, Song felt that the money came too quickly, so he published negative information about the company again just over a month later and asked the company to renew the contract of 350,000 yuan on the original basis. In just 10 months, Song extorted 1.72 million yuan from multiple companies, of which 1.53 million yuan was actually obtained.

On November 17, 2021, a company that was blackmailed by Song couldn't bear Song's threats and chose to call the police. The next day, the Haizhou Branch of the Lianyungang Municipal Public Security Bureau opened the case for investigation.

Many companies often encounter self-media accounts publishing negative information or spreading rumors. If they want to delete posts, they have to pay "public relations fees." In order to maintain the corporate image and stock price, some companies have no choice but to swallow their anger and spend money to "eliminate disasters."

Because Song’s behavior seriously infringed on the rights and interests of the company, during the investigation stage, the Haizhou District Procuratorate was invited to intervene in advance and guide the public security organs to restore the process of the company being coerced, verify the reasons why the company agreed to pay the money, the source of the article on the WeChat public account, and Investigation and evidence collection were carried out in more than 10 aspects, including authenticity, to continuously consolidate the evidence base.

On March 11, 2022, the case was transferred to the Haizhou District Procuratorate for review and prosecution. During the review process, the prosecutor handling the case used objective evidence such as victim statements and mobile phone chat records to sort out the time and amount of extortion for each company one by one, and analyze the evidence that Song committed extortion against multiple companies.

"We must strictly distinguish the boundaries between public opinion supervision, online rights protection and extortion. In this case, under the banner of public opinion supervision, Song took advantage of the victim company's fear of negative reports that would damage its business reputation, and specifically collected and published negative information about the company. In the end, Forcing companies to pay post deletion fees and eliminate negative impacts in the name of public relations expenses does not comply with the principle of equal compensation and is a typical act of extortion." On June 2, 2022, the Haizhou District Procuratorate held a joint meeting of prosecutors to review the case. During the discussion, Wang Yiyun, a member of the party group of the hospital and a full-time member of the Procuratorial Committee, expressed his opinions at the meeting. After in-depth and detailed discussions, everyone finally determined that Song was guilty of extortion.

During the handling of the case, the procuratorial organs found that many companies are often not good at using legal weapons to protect their own rights and interests when encountering self-media extortion. In order to help companies operate in a more healthy and orderly manner, after analysis, judgment and on-site visits, the hospital issued a corporate risk warning letter to the victim companies on December 20, 2022, and jointly carried out cyberspace governance with the public security agencies to specifically combat "public opinion" "Blackmail" cybercrime.

In view of the characteristics of this case, the Haizhou District Procuratorate relied on the "Procuratorial Blue Escort Post" of the Procuratorate Protection Enterprise to carry out legal publicity and special lectures for the companies involved in the case, and publicize the correct practices when encountering online blackmail and online infringement by explaining the law through cases. Help enterprises operate legally and ensure the healthy development of the industry.

In December 2023, relying on the "Prosecution Blue Escort Post", prosecutors carried out law popularization for enterprises in the jurisdiction to ensure the healthy development of the industry. The picture shows the prosecutor handling the case providing one-on-one legal consultation to corporate legal affairs.

“Through the handling of this case, we are constantly reflecting on ourselves and improving our ability to correctly respond to and handle public opinion. With your help, when encountering similar incidents, we will use the law to protect our legitimate rights and interests as soon as possible. , no longer suffer from 'blackmail'." On December 30, 2022, the victim company sent a reply letter to the prosecutor's office.

handles one case and manages one. After the Haizhou District Procuratorate sorted out the cases of "news extortion" and "button damage to enterprises", it asked the enterprises through discussions, surveys, etc. how to distinguish between publicity fees and extortion, and when encountering bad self-media maliciously smearing the enterprise. We actively carry out legal publicity on issues such as how to protect our image and rights. Since 2024, the institute has held more than 30 legal popularization lectures on various topics such as intellectual property protection and legal risk prevention for corporate employees across the region.

Correspondent Lu Zhijian Sun Xinxin Liu Hanxuan

Yangzi Evening News Network/Ziniu News reporter Liu Liu

Proofreading by Tao Shanggong

(Source: Yangtze Evening News)