Recently, in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, a dog picker "killed Koji" incident swept the Internet, triggering a wave of comments. Some people commented on and abused the parties in the micro-blog topic, some comforted the lost dog on the micro-blog, and some questioned the police's ability under the police micro-blog in the place where the incident occurred. For a while, microblogging became a "carnival ground" for public opinion.
Among these noisy voices of public opinion, which are just? Which are unjust? Who is abusing the right to speak given by the Internet? Where is the boundary of online speech? In this regard, relevant experts believe that online speeches can not go beyond the legal boundaries.
There are "routines" for microblogging to seek help
Xiao Tang, who is studying in Graduate School, like other post-90s generation, likes to open Weibo to watch hot search when it's okay. Recently, she and other netizens watched the dog picker's "fall to Kirky" incident. Ms. Wu's Kirky dog was found and given to Ms. He by the guard after it was lost in Chengdu, Sichuan. However, Ms. He did not return the dog to Ms. Wu, but kept asking Ms. Wu for money on the pretext of buying dog food and dog kennels. Ms. Wu failed to negotiate with Ms. He many times. Eventually, the Koki dog was killed by Mrs. He. After the incident, Ms. Wu posted relevant content on Weibo, which attracted a large number of netizens'attention. Many netizens have conducted a human flesh search for Ms. He, who is a dog collector, and made her personal information, telephone number and other privacy public online. Some netizens even mailed funeral articles to Ms. He by single mail according to the disclosed address.
"It's all routines." This is Xiao Tangwei's comment after watching the network incident. In Xiaotang's impression, the process of such incidents is first disclosed by netizens, big V and other micro-blogs, arousing public concern and discussion, netizens launched human flesh search, over-exposed the information of the parties, and commented and abused on the parties'micro-blogs. Some netizens even harassed the parties offline according to their personal information disclosed by others. "Probably it's true that microblogging can solve problems quickly to a certain extent, and many incidents have been exposed and neglected to punish the over-disclosure of information, so that some netizens have become accustomed to and accepted this way of solving problems." Xiaotang said.
But what is common is justice? "It does not meet the requirements of a society ruled by law to solve problems by exposing individual incidents to the public through the internet." Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, said, "If we use a way that may cause greater damage to the legal interests of an individual to achieve the protection of legal interests, I think this way and method is problematic."
Human flesh search prone to network violence
The human flesh search triggered by microblog exposure has entered a strange circle. On the one hand, it promotes the rapid transmission and collection of information, to a certain extent, it promotes the process of solving incidents; on the other hand, it does bring about network violence, and derives a series of legal issues.
"Human flesh search can effectively integrate the strength of the network group, mobilize the enthusiasm of netizens, obtain the required information resources at the fastest speed, and ultimately meet people's information needs." Wang Xijuan, a lawyer at Beijing Dehe Heng Law Firm, said, "In addition, human flesh search is also a powerful supervision of violations of social public welfare and social morality, which helps to promote social integrity and curb the evil wind." But at the same time, Wang Xijuan believes that because of the anonymity of the network and the randomness and blindness of the network language, human flesh search can easily lead to network violence and network attacks. If human flesh search can not be effectively regulated, let it wantonly attack, abuse rampant, and even trigger personal violence conflicts, then human flesh search will ultimately be prohibited by law.
"Protecting rights is a legitimate act, but it should be stopped by sending microblogs to seek relief and vent, calling for human flesh search, and guiding netizens to attack and watch." Zhu Wei said that when the content of microblog involves the legitimate rights and interests of others, especially privacy, it is easy for the parties to assume more responsibilities than they should. At the same time, the users of micro-blog are mixed, and the public lacks awareness. If the fair sex of events is given to the people who do not know the truth and judgement is guided by public opinion, there will be public opinion trial. This is to be avoided, even at the expense of a certain degree of freedom of expression, because it is the greatest harm to the rule of law. Whether as a micro-blog platform or a micro-blog user, we should try our best to avoid the network violence caused by human flesh search.
Violation of personal information may lead to imprisonment
Human flesh search involves not only network infringement, but also criminal liability. "If the results of human flesh search are used to criticize and coerce the parties, if they lead to mental disorder, misconduct, or transfer cyber violence to the offline, resulting in serious legal consequences, they will be suspected of libel, insult and even intentional injury." Zhu Wei said so.
In Wang Xijuan's opinion, the behavior of netizens publishing other people's telephone numbers and ID card numbers through the Internet belongs to "infringing on citizens'personal information" in terms of the nature of their behavior. If they meet the conviction criteria of "serious circumstances", they constitute the crime of infringing on citizens' personal information.
Article 3, paragraph 1, of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Questions Concerning the Application of Law in Criminal Cases of Infringing on Citizen's Personal Information (hereinafter referred to as Interpretation), which came into effect on June 1, 2017, stipulates that providing citizens'personal information to specific persons and publishing citizens' personal information through information networks or other means shall be deemed to be Article 253 of the Criminal Law. Providing personal information of citizens.
Wang Xijuan said that this provision expanded the interpretation of the crime of infringing on citizens'personal information as one of the types of acts, and included the act of "publishing citizens' personal information through information networks or other means" that is, the act of disseminating citizens'personal information to non-specific objects into the category of "providing" citizens' personal information. Accordingly, if the human flesh search act infringes on the rights and interests of others and reaches a serious situation, it will constitute a crime.
Wang Xijuan further pointed out that in the definition of Interpretation, "citizen's personal information" refers to "information that can be recorded electronically or in combination with other information to identify a particular natural person or reflect the activities of a particular natural person, including name, identity card number, communication contact, address, property status, track and so on". 。 Netizens who publish other people's personal information, telephone number, company information and address on the Internet belong to "citizen's personal information".
However, whether to disclose other people's personal information is bound to be prosecuted for legal responsibility? Wang Xijuan said that Article 12 of the Provisions on the Application of Law in Civil Dispute Cases of Infringement on Personal Rights and Interests through Information Network issued by the Supreme People's Court in 2014 stipulates that network users or network service providers make use of the network to disclose personal privacy and other personal information such as natural person's genetic information, criminal records, family address, private activities and so on, to cause others. If the infringed person requests him to bear the tort liability for damage, the people's court shall support him. At the same time, the provision also lists six exceptions, including "in order to promote the public interest and within the necessary scope", "natural person's own information on the Internet or other legally disclosed personal information", "personal information obtained through legal channels".
"Big V" of the Internet can't abuse the right of expression
Because there are many participants in human flesh search and they involve a wide range of areas, the harmfulness of individual participants'behavior is often relatively light. According to the view that the law is not responsible for the public, the strength of using criminal law to deal with human flesh search cases seems to be quite limited.
"The law does not hold the public accountable. On the level of criminal law, it is not because of the large number of people involved in criminal incidents that the relevant criminal responsibility will not be investigated, but that in this case, the scope of attack should be narrowed and the principal elements and principal offenders should be punished with emphasis." Zhu Wei said.
How to solve the problem of human flesh search and its derivative network violence? Zhu Wei believes that those who have the right to express on the Internet should pay more attention to the guidance of their discourse, and their right to express should be more restricted. Network platforms such as micro-blog should be stopped in time when the incidents show signs, and relevant measures should be taken to stop and punish big V and netizens who violate the law in time. The government should strengthen law popularization education, guide public opinion well and turn one public opinion event into a law popularization case.
