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In August 2023, the final judgment was pronounced in the case where Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. filed a lawsuit against "Niuche Laboratory", a Douyin account operated by Beijing Cheqianli Interactive Technology Co., Ltd., for insult and defamation targeting the "New X-Trail" vehicle model. The court finally ruled that Beijing Cheqianli shall compensate Dongfeng Nissan RMB 5 million for economic losses and relevant expenses incurred in safeguarding legitimate rights. As the online tort liability dispute case brought by an automobile manufacturer against a self-media entity with the highest compensation amount in recent years, this case is of great typical significance.

Case Review

From August to November 2021, "Niuju Laboratory", the Douyin account owned by Beijing Cheqianli Co., Ltd., published a number of "review" videos targeting products under Dongfeng Nissan. The content of the aforesaid videos conducted purported "evaluation" on the paint abrasion resistance, sealing performance, assembly process, Internet of Vehicles functions and other relevant aspects of new Chery models, and released such contents as "Trouble comes naturally once the Internet of Vehicles is turned on" and "A brand new Chery car rusts right after its roof is disassembled".

"A single stone stirs up thousands of ripples." Dongfeng Nissan responded immediately upon discovering the relevant content. It contended that the relevant titles, contents and comments published by Beijing Cheqianli on its online accounts clearly contain elements of insult, defamation, disparagement and vilification against the new X-Trail, which have caused extremely severe negative impacts on the image of Dongfeng Motor and the model image of the new X-Trail. Accordingly, Dongfeng Nissan filed a lawsuit against Beijing Cheqianli, and the court of first instance placed the case on file for acceptance in January 2022.

In December 2022, the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone People's Court of Hubei Province rendered a judgment in favor of Dongfeng Nissan, ordering Beijing Cheqianli to delete the videos involved in the case, make a public apology, and pay RMB 5 million as compensation for the economic losses of Dongfeng Nissan.

Subsequently, Beijing Cheqianli refused to accept the judgment and filed an appeal to the Intermediate People's Court. After trial, the court of second instance rendered a judgment in accordance with the law in August 2023: the appeal was dismissed and the original judgment was upheld. Hereby, the case is finally closed. As the final outcome of the case, the Douyin account operated by Beijing Cheqianli shall make a public apology and pay a large sum of compensation in accordance with the effective court judgment.

Relevant institutions have conducted data analysis and research on all cases of enterprises suing for reputation infringement published on China Judgments Online of the Supreme People's Court, and found that the amount of compensation generally ranges from RMB 50,000 to RMB 100,000. Cases where the awarded compensation is between RMB 100,000 and RMB 200,000 are extremely rare, and those with compensation exceeding RMB 200,000 are almost non-existent. In 2021, Great Wall Motors claimed RMB 3 million in economic losses and RMB 37,000 in rights protection expenses from the infringing party Guangzhou Chegulu Network Technology Co., Ltd. However, in April this year, the court finally ruled that the aforesaid company shall pay RMB 65,000 in compensation and make a public apology. In 2022, Tesla filed a lawsuit against a blogger in a similar case and claimed RMB 5 million in compensation. The court ruled in favor of Tesla and ordered the aforesaid blogger to pay hundreds of thousands of RMB in compensation to Tesla. In July 2023, NIO filed a lawsuit against "Cheshiji" and its operator. The final judgment provides that "Cheshiji" shall pin the apology statement to NIO at the top of its account for 30 consecutive days, and the controller of the account shall compensate NIO RMB 300,000 for economic losses.

It can be seen from this that prior to the Dongfeng Nissan case, the trial approach adopted by the courts was as follows: enterprises, especially well-known enterprises, bear a certain duty of tolerance towards critical comments made by consumers, the general public and even self-media, and the weight of public freedom of speech is higher than that of enterprise interests. However, the final judgment of the Wuhan Intermediate People's Court in this case indicates that against the backdrop of the new era, the trial approach of the courts has witnessed a remarkable and substantial change, which objectively defines the boundaries and consequences that relevant Internet users, self-media users and other subjects shall clearly recognize when making remarks on other enterprises or even individuals.

As stated in the judgment of the Wuhan Intermediate People's Court: The defendant takes personal feelings as the criterion, abuses the influence of self-media to widely disseminate information of unknown authenticity or information that is true but highly misleading. Meanwhile, instead of fully disclosing valid information to help the audience make objective judgments, the defendant uses misleading expressions to make comments, which is likely to cause the unspecified public to form negative even negative evaluative judgments on the plaintiff's commercial goodwill and commodity reputation, thus affecting consumers' consumption choices. The obviously derogatory terms and unverified negative information contained in the series of videos, as well as the act of intensively and continuously publishing content with negative comments through the Douyin account, have deviated from basic objective facts and the applicable tolerance limit, exceeded the boundary of online freedom of speech and the scope of normal public opinion criticism and supervision. This illegal act will inevitably damage the reputation of Dongfeng Motor Corporation and adversely affect its business environment. Automobile enterprises need to invest huge amounts of scientific research funds in product research and development. If the illegal purpose of preventing competitors from obtaining transaction opportunities by means of slander at negligible cost is realized and emulated by entities engaging in unfair competition, the market competition order will be disrupted, and opportunistic vicious competition acts such as malicious slander, disparagement and defamation will run rampant.

Generally speaking, criticism and comments made by internet users on the quality of goods and services are statutory rights of consumers, which shall not constitute infringement. However, where the following conditions are met, such acts shall constitute infringement of the right to reputation, and the relevant actor shall bear corresponding legal liabilities:

① Where the information released or statements made by the actor contain such contents as insult, defamation and the like;

② The infringing act is known to persons other than the victim.

③ The social evaluation of the victim is lowered as a result.

④ The actor has fault in respect of the tortious act, and such fault may take the form of either intent or negligence.

In recent years, we media, as an emerging communication medium, has been playing an increasingly prominent role in the internet age. However, with the development of we media, there has been a growing number of cases involving infringement upon the right of reputation of others. Short-video apps represented by Douyin are extremely popular. Such platforms have low access thresholds, a high degree of identity anonymity, fast information release speed and strong public opinion influence. As a result, many people intend to utilize the public opinion effect of information dissemination to steer the development of incidents in their favor, so as to maximize their own interests. Some WeChat official accounts, Weibo Big Vs and Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) hold substantial "discursive power", whose influence is equivalent to that of traditional media, and even greater in some circumstances. The legitimate criticism made by these "mega accounts" on social phenomena and product quality can also perform the supervisory function of traditional media. Nevertheless, when their improper remarks cause damage to the personality rights and interests of others, the consequences of infringement may be even more severe given the greater convenience of information dissemination.

Accordingly, the core of self-media compliance lies in examining whether the disseminated content contains false or misleading information, or insulting or derogatory remarks. In case of false promotional content, the victim may safeguard their lawful rights and interests by filing complaints on social media platforms, instituting reputation infringement litigation, instituting unfair competition litigation for commercial defamation, submitting administrative reports, filing criminal case reports, etc.

Take this case as an example. Automobile evaluations are carried out at multiple levels ranging from superficial to in-depth: some are based on personal sensory experience, while others involve the disassembly of vehicles. Descriptions using the professional terminology of automobile engineering technicians are less likely to constitute infringement upon enterprises, whereas descriptions in emotional or literary language are prone to constitute reputation infringement upon enterprises.

It should be noted at the same time that a test only constitutes a summary list of data measured with experimental equipment and instruments, with its conclusions described in engineering terms and categorized as a test and experiment report. The validity of such a report per se shall be premised on the replicability of the test process by other test teams to obtain identical data. All formal technical engineering experimental tests shall adopt uniformly recognized industry technical standards, standardized testing procedures and commonly accepted experimental equipment. Otherwise, self-devised independent testing systems have no universal applicability. Extreme caution shall be exercised in wording when interpreting data results, especially when disclosing such results to the general public. Any adjectives containing subjective judgments or qualitative determinations may easily constitute a tort that infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of the evaluated subject.

If an actor resorts to leading appellations, uses false experimental methods and conclusion data, employs a variety of open-ended and interrogative sentences, and adopts the method of inducing the public to post one-sided comments in the comment section, such conducts shall, to a large extent, be determined to contain false content and constitute acts of misleading the public, and thus be recognized as infringement upon the right of reputation.

If one publishes remarks with strong insulting connotations and negative comments, such conduct shall fall beyond the reasonable scope of supervision and evaluation, and shall be deemed to have the intent to insult and defame others. Taking into account the frequency and continuity of the published remarks, such conduct as a whole shall constitute an insult to others, which is sufficient to lower the social evaluation of others and result in damage to others' right to reputation.

In the current 5G era where everyone can function as self-media, advances in internet technology and the rise of self-media platforms have further expanded the space for people to freely express their opinions. Opinions and views that people wish to but are unable or afraid to voice in real life can be boldly published on the internet under anonymous identities. However, when we exercise the right to freedom of speech under the cover of online anonymity, we must keep in mind that we shall not infringe upon the lawful rights and interests of others. Even if we publish any remarks online anonymously, we shall be held responsible for the objectivity and impartiality of such remarks. In particular, self-media operators with a certain number of followers shall be aware that the views they produce or repost will gain endorsement and support, forming a strong climate of public opinion, and thus shall perform a higher duty of review.