Rumor makers need to bear legal responsibility, especially in today's era of advanced information. In the new media based on the Internet, it is consistent to bear legal responsibility in real life. The reason is that spreading rumors on the Internet infringes on the individual rights of citizens or legal persons and endangers the social management order.
Recently, I heard a news that a post said that "the chances of getting cancer after eating overnight meals will greatly increase", which caused great repercussions among the people. Some people believe, some people don't believe, some people question, some people panic, and some people target.
So this is a rumor? Let's analyze it now. What is a rumor?
For example, some infinitely exaggerate individual events and distort facts to create rumors; For example, some people fabricate facts and create rumors out of nothing. This kind of behavior has certain social harm, and some even directly or indirectly affect social stability.
What is the nature of rumors? The essence of rumors is to make them out of nothing. There are many kinds of rumors, including political rumors, business rumors and social rumors. But no matter what kind of rumors are spread far away from the facts, their makers have more or less certain purposes, not just more often.
So; Spread rumors or assume the following responsibilities:
First, civil liability, that is, if spreading rumors infringes on citizens' personal reputation or infringes on the goodwill of legal persons, according to the provisions of China's General Principles of Civil Law, it is responsible for stopping the infringement, restoring reputation, eliminating the influence, apologizing and compensating for losses; The most typical is the infringement of the right of reputation, which refers to the violation of human rights because literary works, notices, behavioral language or other forms have a negative impact on the reputation of the parties concerned.
The responsibility of reputation infringement is: according to the fact that the victim's reputation is damaged (damage fact), the actor's behavior is illegal (infringement), there is a causal relationship between illegal behavior and damage consequences (causality), and the actor is subjectively at fault (fault), these four elements of infringement are identified.
Anyone who damages the reputation of others due to serious misrepresentation in news reports shall be deemed as reputation infringement. Here, two elements are emphasized: serious inaccuracy in news reports and damage to others' reputation, both of which are indispensable at the same time.
The most famous case of reputation infringement is Xie Jin's reputation infringement case. In this case, the court held that Xie Jin was a film director with both ability and political integrity. Some people took advantage of Xie Jin's death, at the opportunity of news reporting, and used the internet to commit infringement, so that Xie Jin's reputation right was illegally infringed on a larger scale. The subjective fault of the rumor maker is very serious, and the infringement means adopted are very bad. The court decided to immediately stop the infringement of the right of reputation, and published a public apology statement in a prominent position on websites and newspapers. Compensate Xie Jin's family for economic losses and mental damages.
The second is administrative responsibility, that is, spreading rumors, falsely reporting dangerous situations, epidemic situations, police situations or intentionally disturbing public order by other means, or openly insulting others or fabricating facts to slander others, which does not constitute a crime, should be given administrative penalties such as detention and fines according to the Law on Public Security Administration Punishment;
The legal basis is:
Article 25 of the Law on Public Security Administration Punishment stipulates: "Anyone who commits one of the following acts shall be detained for more than five days and less than ten days, and may be fined up to five hundred yuan; If the circumstances are relatively minor, they shall be detained for not more than five days or fined not more than five hundred yuan:
(a) spreading rumors, lying about dangerous situations, epidemic situations, police situations or deliberately disturbing public order by other means;
(two) throwing fake explosions, toxic, radioactive, corrosive substances or infectious disease pathogens and other dangerous substances to disturb public order;
(3) Threatening to set fire, explode or throw dangerous substances to disturb public order. "
Therefore, if rumors are spread, the public security organ can punish the perpetrator according to the above provisions, and the police station will summon, verify and punish the perpetrator with a summons card according to the provisions.
For example, recently, some people in Jinzhong, Taiyuan, Lvliang, Changzhi, Yangquan and other places left their homes because of "earthquake rumors" and poured into the streets to avoid earthquakes, which seriously disrupted people's hearts and local life and production order. After the incident, the public security organs immediately launched an investigation into the source of the rumor. On February 25th, five people who spread "earthquake rumors" were punished by administrative detention.
Recently, some netizens fabricated and spread rumors on the Internet, especially in Weibo, which caused bad social impact. Beijing public security organs quickly launched an investigation. According to relevant laws and regulations, six people, including Li and Tang, who fabricated rumors on the Internet were detained according to law, and other people who spread related rumors on the Internet were educated and admonished. Relevant personnel confessed to fabricating and spreading rumors, expressed remorse for their actions and made a review.
The third is criminal responsibility, that is, spreading rumors, which constitutes a crime, shall be investigated for criminal responsibility in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Law.
Article 246 Crimes of insult and slander: Whoever publicly insults others or fabricates facts to slander others by violence or other means, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention, public surveillance or deprivation of political rights.
Article 291 Crime of fabricating and intentionally spreading false terrorist information Whoever fabricates terrorist information such as explosion threat, biochemical threat, radiation threat, or intentionally spreads it knowing that it is fabricated terrorist information, thus seriously disrupting social order, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years, criminal detention or public surveillance; If serious consequences are caused, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years.
Cost analysis:
Defamation: it is a serious act to deliberately fabricate and spread certain facts and damage the reputation and personality of others.
The main features of this crime are:
(1) Subjectively, it is intentional and has the purpose of damaging the reputation and personality of others.
(2) Objectively speaking, it is a serious act that the actor fabricated some facts and spread them.
If the facts spread are true, even if they are ugly to others, they do not constitute this crime. The way to slander others, words and words can be used.
Thus, the crime of libel that constitutes the crime of libel must be serious, and the crime of libel that violates public security management regulations must be limited within the scope of insufficient criminal punishment. Civil acts against the right of reputation are not only less illegal than libel and libel in violation of public security regulations, but also have the following differences:
(1) The crime of libel must spread fabricated and false facts. If you spread objective facts, it will do harm to others' personality and reputation, but it does not constitute libel. Reputation infringement, even if the content is true, will damage the personality and reputation of others as long as it is prohibited by law, and it can also constitute reputation infringement. Even the truer the facts, the more serious the infringement. For example, exposing others' privacy in order to damage their reputation, the more realistic it is, the worse its tort nature is. According to article 140 of the Supreme People's Court's Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Implementation of the General Principles of the Civil Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) (for Trial Implementation), disclosing and publicizing others' privacy will have a negative impact on their reputation, which is an act of infringement of the right of reputation and does not constitute a crime of libel.
(2) Legal persons, groups and organizations cannot be the object of libel. In reputation infringement, legal persons, groups and organizations can all be victims. For example, spreading false news, falsely claiming that a factory's products are inferior in quality, etc. The purpose is to bring down the other side by unfair competition. Even if this behavior causes serious consequences, it can only constitute a crime of damaging business reputation and commodity reputation, but not a crime of libel.
(3) Different subjective fault requirements. The subjective aspect of libel crime must be direct intention; The subjective fault of reputation infringement includes negligence. In addition, even if there are false elements in well-meaning accusations, exposures and criticisms, they should not be punished as libel.
Although the network is a virtual world, it is against the law to spread rumors in this virtual world, and we should bear corresponding legal responsibilities. With the rapid development of Internet technology, on the one hand, the Internet has brought great convenience to people's lives and promoted economic and social development, but it has also provided a channel for some people to spread rumors on the Internet. Because the network spreads widely, network rumors should be controlled.
In recent years, illegal and criminal activities through the Internet are increasing. For some time, the problem of online rumors has been more prominent. This kind of behavior also has particularity in subject, behavior characteristics, infringing object and so on. For example, the subject of behavior involves both malicious rumors and a large number of netizens who do not know the truth.
China's "Administrative Measures for Internet Information Services" and "Regulations on the Administration of Internet Service Sites" and other relevant regulations also clarify that Internet service providers may not produce, copy, publish or spread information that endangers national security, spreads rumors, disrupts social order, undermines social stability or insults and slanders others.
How to effectively punish and prevent network rumors and illegal and criminal activities?
First, "the freedom of online speech cannot be without boundaries and restrictions, it cannot infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of others, and it cannot cause harm to real life and society. While enjoying the right to network freedom, a citizen should also fulfill his obligations and consciously maintain network order. " Cheng Bin, a lawyer of Beijing Guandao Law Firm, said that on the one hand, we should emphasize the heteronomy in dealing with online rumors, and on the other hand, we should ask netizens to behave themselves and improve their legal awareness and civilized quality.
Second, on the basis of strengthening and innovating social management, it is necessary to bring some online rumors that are very harmful to society and have caused serious consequences into the scope of criminal law adjustment.
Third, strengthen legal publicity and education, make netizens realize that they should be responsible for their words and deeds, and at the same time strengthen management and implement the online real-name registration system, so that citizens can realize that if they make inappropriate comments online, they will also be investigated and their sense of responsibility will be enhanced. Internet operators should also strengthen their sense of responsibility and announce or delete false statements in time. At the same time, government departments should also strengthen the supervision of the Internet, not only to strengthen the education and supervision of netizens, but also to strengthen the supervision of Internet companies, investigate and deal with illegal acts in a timely manner, and investigate criminal responsibility according to law if they constitute a crime.
What should I do to deal with rumors?
Rumors are groundless, specious and extremely confusing. But rumors become rumors because they lack factual basis. Therefore, facts and truth are the natural enemies of rumors, and only facts can defeat rumors. This requires the joint efforts of the government, social organizations and individual citizens. For ordinary citizens, be rational and don't believe in rumors, especially those who like to communicate with others and post news in "chat rooms" or "BBS". The media should also be rational, do not publish or reprint unverified news, and do not conceal information that the public should know based on the right to know.
For authoritative organizations such as the government, when rumors happen, it is necessary to release information at the first time, explain the ins and outs of the incident with as detailed and clear factual evidence as possible, clarify the confusion and win the trust of the people. Openness, transparency and timeliness of information are the basic principles to deal with all public events, including online rumors. Therefore, the government and other authoritative organizations should be familiar with and master the network tools as soon as possible, and be familiar with their operating rules.
For individual citizens, it is necessary to enhance their sense of social responsibility. Before you speak, you should first consider whether your speech is well-founded and whether it will have adverse effects on others and society. It is the duty of every responsible law-abiding citizen not to fabricate facts and not to spread gossip without facts.