Yesterday, a reporter from the Beijing Morning Post learned from the Beijing Third Middle Court that the court issued a final judgment on Wang Feng’s lawsuit against "China’s first paparazzi Zhuo Wei" (Weibo nickname, hereinafter referred to as Zhuo Wei) in a dispute over reputation rights. The court finally found that Zhuo Wei did not constitute an insult or slander to Wang Feng, and rejected Wang Feng’s appeal.
In April 2015, Wang Feng sued the Chaoyang court, claiming that on April 20, 2015, Zhuo Wei shared an article entitled "[Exclusive] Zhang Ziyi Wang Feng’s Certificate, Honeymoon Friends Sing Husband" published by "National Star Scouts" on his personal Sina Weibo, and the title was "I am innocent of gambling pioneer, and my mother in the film industry has feelings."
Wang Feng believes that without investigation and verification, Zhuo Wei casually insulted and slandered Wang Feng as a "gambling pioneer" on his personal Weibo, openly damaged Wang Feng’s personality and image, and misled the public’s evaluation of Wang Feng, which has seriously violated Wang Feng’s right to reputation. He asked Zhuo Wei to delete the lawsuit Weibo, issue an apology statement, and compensate 2 million yuan for mental damage.
Zhuo Wei argued that he was not at fault subjectively, did not violate Wang Feng’s reputation, and his actions were exercising his right to freedom of speech and public opinion supervision as a citizen in accordance with the law.
After the trial, the original court found that the reputation infringement lacked factual and legal basis, and did not support Wang Feng’s lawsuit. After the first-instance judgment, Wang Feng refused to accept it and still appealed to the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate Court on the grounds of the original lawsuit, demanding that the original judgment be revoked and the judgment be changed to support all his claims.
Court opinion
1 Gambling is based
The Municipal Third Intermediate Court held that although Wang Feng argued that he had not participated in any activities that could be identified as gambling in our country, he did not deny that he had participated in gambling and entertainment activities abroad. Zhuo Wei relied on the information obtained from public media reports to publish his subjective cognition of Wang Feng’s behavior through the form of Weibo. It should be determined that the behavior is not a slander without factual basis, but a subjective comment made by individuals based on the facts they know.
2 The title is difficult to predict
Although the words used in the subjective comment are sharp and exaggerated, the basic facts on which the subjective comment is based are true. In addition, "gambling pioneer" is only the title in the Weibo involved in the case, and the content displayed and conveyed to the public is relatively limited. The content of the Weibo involved and the relevant link pages do not have any discussions related to "gambling pioneer", and it is difficult to determine that it constitutes defamation based on the words in the title alone.
3 Non-malicious insults
Objectively speaking, the term "gambling pioneer" should generally be regarded as a non-positive evaluation of people, but in determining whether an act constitutes an insult, insult cannot simply be equated with the application of derogatory words, but should distinguish between comments within the scope of public acceptance and malicious insults. The 2nd-round Moderation Court held that Zhuo Wei’s wording about "gambling pioneer", although sharp, was still within the scope of personal subjective feelings rather than malicious insults.
In summary, although Zhuo Wei called Wang Feng a "gambling pioneer" with inappropriate words, it did not constitute insult and slander, and according to the identity of the Weibo publisher, the title and content of Weibo, as a rational social person, it is difficult to make a negative evaluation of Wang Feng based on the Weibo case alone. Accordingly, the final judgment of the Third Intermediate Court of the City rejected Wang Feng’s appeal and upheld the original judgment of the first instance.
Beijing Morning Post reporter, Huang Xiaoyu