Study on the Criminal Law Regulation of Online Rumors Insulting "Strangers": -- A Case Study of a Woman from Hangzhou Being Slandered on July 7

Liwen Tang

doi:10.54691/bcpssh.v16i.505

Authors

Liwen Tang

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54691/bcpssh.v16i.505

Keywords:

Online Rumors Insulting Strangers; Guiding Case; Crime of Defamation; The Crime of Picking Quarrels and Provoking Trouble; Liability of Crime.

Abstract

According to the annual legal supervision cases released by the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China in recent years, the online rumors insulting strangers based on their characteristics, which damages the strangers' reputation, will be identified as crime of defamation. The criminal law regulation is significant in this regard, and based on the certain civil liability system, this act should be defined as crime of defamation since it infringes people's fame and dignity. As for the infringement of legal interests, the act of starting a rumor, in essence, matches with the definition of the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, which refers to those acts of fabricating and intentionally spreading false information and seriously disturbing social order. When both the indictment criteria for defamation and the criterion of serious disruption of public order are met, the imaginative joinder offenses arise.

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References

For more details about this case, refer to the coverage released by Xinhua News: Cyber Violence Caused by a "Cooked-up Story" – Investigation into the Rumor of a Hangzhou Woman's Courier Pickup (http:// www. zj.xinhuanet.com/2021-05/01/c_1127400304.htm.).

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