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First, let us look at a case:

Wu Mou fabricated stories on a certain online platform via his personal account *Feige in Dongguan*, for the purpose of attracting fans and driving traffic to carry out real estate sales. On November 19, 2021, when browsing online, Wu Mou found a post themed *Daily Life with My Grandpa* published by the victim Shen Mou. He then downloaded images attached to the post, and published a new post on the aforesaid online account with these images, fabricating false information that "A 73-year-old entrepreneur from Qingxi, Dongguan, lavishly married a 29-year-old woman from Guangxi, and gave her betrothal gifts, an apartment and a luxury car as gifts". The aforesaid post was widely reposted and discussed online, triggering wanton verbal abuse and defamation against Shen Mou from Internet users. On relevant online platforms, discussions related to the post reached 75,608 entries, reposts reached 31,485 times, and views exceeded 470 million, which caused an extremely adverse social impact.

Subsequently, Wu was indicted for the crime of defamation by the First Urban District People's Procuratorate of Dongguan City, Guangdong Province. The First People's Court of Dongguan City, Guangdong Province held in its judgment that: The accused Wu Moumou defamed others by fabricating facts on information networks, with serious circumstances and severely undermined social order. In light of the circumstances of the accused's crime and his admission of guilt and acceptance of punishment, the Court sentenced the accused Wu Moumou to one-year fixed-term imprisonment for the crime of defamation. This judgment has taken legal effect.

The aforesaid cases of infringement upon the lawful rights and interests of others arising from "online violence" are not isolated cases. With the rapid development of the Internet, the dissemination speed and scope of information online have far exceeded those of traditional media such as newspapers, periodicals and television. When certain social incidents are exposed via the Internet and attract extensive public attention, some unlawful elements, for the purpose of obtaining online traffic, fabricate facts, spread rumors and commit defamation, and maliciously slander others online, resulting in a large number of "online violence" incidents. Perpetrators and participants of online violence usually take the moral high ground, style themselves as moral judges, claim to uphold justice in the name of moral condemnation in total disregard of facts and truth, and launch public denouncements. They carry out personal attacks against others online through defamatory, slanderous, inflammatory and reputation-infringing speeches, texts, images, videos and other content, which also inflicts enormous and incurable psychological and mental trauma on the victims.

Whereas victims of vicious online violence incidents are usually in a weak position with insufficient support, facing dilemmas including difficulties in producing evidence and safeguarding their legitimate rights and interests, difficulty in realizing right remedy through private prosecution, and further inability to effectively hold online violence perpetrators criminally liable via private prosecution. On September 20, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the *Guiding Opinions on Punishing Illegal and Criminal Acts of Online Violence in Accordance with Law*. Covering 20 specific provisions from four dimensions: fully recognizing the harms of online violence, accurate application of law, unimpeded litigation procedures, and strengthening comprehensive governance, the aforesaid Opinions provide a strong rule of law guarantee in a comprehensive and detailed manner for cracking down on illegal online violence acts, purifying the cyberspace environment, and fostering a clean and sound cyberspace.

First of all, with respect to the accurate application of law and the strict punishment of illegal and criminal acts related to online violence in accordance with the law, the Guiding Opinions, pursuant to the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law of China and other relevant laws and in light of different manifestations of online violence conducts, put forward specific guidance on the determination of the nature of such conducts and their corresponding legal liabilities. It not only enumerates in detail the crimes that online violence may involve, including the crime of libel, the crime of insult, the crime of infringement of citizens' personal information, the crime of illegal use of information networks, the crime of refusing to perform information network security management obligations, among others, but also highlights five circumstances for heavier punishment in accordance with the law: (1) Acts committed against minors or persons with disabilities; (2) Acts committed by organizing "water armies", "hatchet men" or other personnel; (3) Fabricating "sex-related" topics to infringe upon the personal dignity of others; (4) Publishing illegal information by using generative artificial intelligence technologies such as "deep synthesis"; (5) Acts initiated or organized by Internet service providers. The aforesaid provisions not only provide operable guidelines for law enforcement and case handling practices, but also clarify the conduct boundaries for information release in cyberspace. They not only deter illegal and criminal acts, but also guide the vast number of netizens to voluntarily abide by the law.

Secondly, with respect to ensuring unimpeded litigation procedures and providing timely and effective legal remedies, the Opinion also sets forth the following three key points:

I. Clarify the relevant responsibilities of public security organs and people's procuratorates

Acts such as online insult and defamation are characterized by wide dissemination, severe harm and hard-to-eliminate impacts. It is often difficult for victims to hold the real perpetrators behind online accounts accountable solely on their own efforts. In view of this, Article 11 of the Opinions further implements the legal provisions on public security organs assisting victims in obtaining evidence, specifying that for cases of private prosecution filed by victims for online insult and defamation, where the people's court finds upon examination that the victim indeed faces difficulties in producing evidence and requests the public security organ to provide assistance, the public security organ shall spare no effort to complete evidence collection assistance, so as to effectively help the victim safeguard their lawful rights and interests. Meanwhile, Article 16 of the Opinions also requires procuratorial organs to strengthen case-filing supervision, explicitly stipulating that procuratorial organs shall initiate public interest litigation in accordance with the law against online violence that harms social and public interests, as well as against acts committed by online service providers that fail to perform their statutory information network security management obligations and harm public interests.

II. Accurately Grasp the Conditions for Public Prosecution of the Crime of Insult and the Crime of Defamation

As stated above, private prosecutors in cases involving the crimes of insult and defamation face the practical dilemma of difficulty in evidence collection. Coupled with the long-standing lack of detailed guidelines for the public prosecution criteria of the two crimes and the excessively high public prosecution threshold, this has resulted in a stark contrast between the year-on-year growth of the number of such cases and the extremely small number of convicted persons, which to a certain extent restricts the functional exertion of public prosecution procedures and the governance effectiveness of cyber violence crimes. In view of this, Article 12 of the Opinions further clarifies the public prosecution criteria for the two aforesaid crimes, unblocks criminal prosecution procedures, and provides timely and effective legal remedies for victims. Specifically, the Opinions adopts the "generalization plus enumeration" approach. On the basis of the general principle for the application of public prosecution procedures to cyber crimes of insult and defamation, which stipulates that "In determining whether online insult and defamation seriously harm social order, a judgment shall be made by comprehensively considering factors such as the object of infringement, motive and purpose, method of conduct, scope of information dissemination and harmful consequences", it further refines the application criteria and enumerates four specific circumstances.

(I) Causing serious consequences such as mental disorder or suicide of the victim or his/her close relatives, with vile social impact. Given that causing the aforesaid serious consequences is the most prominent and extreme harmful circumstance in cyber violence cases, and also exerts the most severe impact on the public's sense of security, it is specified as one of the circumstances for the determination of "seriously endangering social order", and the public prosecution procedure shall be applied pursuant to the law.

(2) Cases where the perpetrator randomly takes ordinary members of the public as the objects of infringement, relevant information is widely disseminated online, triggering a large number of vulgar and malicious comments, seriously disrupting cyberspace order and producing vile social impacts. The frequent online insult and defamation acts targeting randomly selected objects occurring nowadays can enable relevant information to spread at "Internet speed" online, rapidly triggering large-scale negative comments. Such acts not only seriously infringe upon the personality rights and interests of victims, but also cause group panic of "everyone feeling endangered", severely affecting the sense of security of the public in China. Meanwhile, in the face of massive online information, complex dissemination chains and anonymous online accounts, it is far more difficult for victims to collect evidence and safeguard their rights. Therefore, bringing online insult and defamation cases that randomly target ordinary members of the public as infringement objects, seriously disrupt cyberspace order and have vile social impacts into the scope of public prosecution conforms to the substantive condition of "seriously endangering social order" as stipulated in the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, meets the practical needs of effectively punishing cyber violence, and also aligns with the rights protection will of victims.

(III) Insulting or defaming multiple persons, or repeatedly disseminating information that insults or defames others, with vile social impact. This provision sets forth the criteria for the application of public prosecution procedures based on the number of victims of online insult and defamation and the frequency of the perpetration. Compared with first-time offenders and occasional offenders, online insult and defamation acts targeting multiple persons or committed repeatedly cause far greater social harm, and the perpetrators bear significantly greater subjective malice. Listing such acts as a scenario applicable to public prosecution procedures is conducive to strengthening the deterrence and punishment of those who refuse to mend their ways despite repeated admonition, and even illegal personnel who specialize in relevant black and gray industries, serve as "online water army" or "online hatchet men", so as to effectively purify the cyber ecology and safeguard citizens' personality rights and interests.

(IV) Organizing or instructing persons to spread a large amount of insulting and defamatory information on multiple online platforms, resulting in vile social impacts. Cyber violence often gains momentum with the involvement of online black and gray industries such as professional "water armies" behind it, which stir up public opinion turmoil, seek illegal gains and breach the bottom lines of morality and law. To highlight the focus of punishment, the Opinion stipulates that "organizing or instructing persons to spread a large amount of insulting and defamatory information on multiple online platforms, resulting in vile social impacts" is one of the circumstances applicable to the public prosecution procedure.

III. Application of the System of Injunction Against Infringement of Personality Rights in Accordance with the Law

Cyber violence, perpetrated by means of information technology, is markedly different from infringement acts committed in physical space. In particular, the intensity of cyber violence and the extent of damage it causes to the lawful rights and interests of victims are often directly correlated with the speed and scale of the dissemination of cyber violence information. It is usually urgent to block the spread and escalation of cyber violence information, and emergency measures need to be taken to avoid irreparable damage to lawful rights and interests. Article 997 of the *Civil Code of the People's Republic of China* stipulates that: "Where a civil subject has evidence to prove that an actor is committing or is about to commit an illegal act infringing upon his or her personality rights, and failure to stop such act in a timely manner will cause irreparable damage to his or her lawful rights and interests, he or she shall have the right to apply to the people's court in accordance with the law for adoption of measures to order the actor to cease the relevant acts." In view of this, Article 15 of the *Opinions* further emphasizes that, with regard to ongoing or imminent cyber violence acts that infringe upon his or her personality rights, the right holder may also apply to the people's court for application of the personality rights infringement injunction system in accordance with the law when filing a civil lawsuit.

Typical Case Link: Case of Li Moumou's Application for Personality Rights Infringement Injunction

[Basic Facts of the Case]

From May 2022 to April 2023, the defendant Zhang Moumou used his online account with 400,000 followers to conduct live streams more than 40 times, and published videos targeting Li Moumou which contained a large number of abusive and personal attack remarks. These contents attracted attention from netizens, and triggered follow-up comments, ridicule and defamation. In the meantime, Zhang Moumou also set up fan groups to incite others to verbally abuse Li Moumou. On this basis, Li Moumou filed a lawsuit with the people's court on the dispute over online tort liability. During the trial of the case, after the tribunal gave elucidation, Zhang Moumou still conducted scheduled live streams every night, continued to release relevant infringing remarks targeting Li Moumou, and disclosed several digits of Li Moumou's Resident Identity Card number. On July 6, 2023, Li Moumou submitted an application to the people's court for an injunction against personality rights infringement.

【Judgment】

Beijing Internet Court held in its ruling that: In light of the previous conduct of Zhang Moumou and the actual circumstances of this case, he is committing infringing acts, and there is a high likelihood that he will continue to commit such infringing acts. The involved live-streaming videos have a high number of views. If such acts are not stopped in a timely manner, it will significantly increase the burden of rights protection for the plaintiff Li Moumou, and lead to further expansion of the scope of the infringement's impact and the damaging consequences. On this basis, the court rendered a ruling in accordance with the law, ordering Zhang Moumou to immediately stop publishing content that infringes upon Li Moumou's right of reputation via the involved account. After the ruling took legal effect, the respondent Zhang Moumou has ceased the relevant acts.

"The tongue, though boneless, can inflict harm; written words, though unspoken, strike right at the heart." In the Internet era where everyone is equipped with a "microphone" to voice opinions, every individual may potentially become the next victim of cyber violence. The Guiding Opinions jointly issued by the three authorities of China's public security organs, people's procuratorates and people's courts not only demonstrates a clear-cut stance of saying no to cyber violence, but also imposes severe punishment on cyber violence-related acts by virtue of the sword of law, so as to effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the vast number of Internet users, restore a clean and sound cyberspace home, and deliver a strong sense of security to the people.