On The Internet Rumors And Its Legal Liability

[Abstract] Freedom of speech, as one of the fundamental human rights, is written into the constitution by many countries, including China. And this right to speak freely gains full guarantee with the development of the internet. However, Owing to the characteristics of network and the poor legal concept of people, this right tends to be magnified without a limit and produces internet rumors which definitely do much harm to our people, our society and the whole country. Anyone who fabricates and spreads rumors is to bear legal liability. This thesis mainly elaborates internet rumors and their legal liability from the following aspects:In Chapter One, this paper backwards the definition of rumor and Internet rumors. Chapter One also expounds several major characteristics of Internet rumors and at the same time describes the current state of Internet rumors.In Chapter Two, the paper analyses the reasons of Internet rumors from four different aspects:the excessive democracy, the infinite expanding of free speech, the existence of the virtual network and our imperfection law on regulations of network speech.In Chapter Three, this paper elaborates three kinds of liability caused by making and spreading Internet rumors from the legal perspective and then analyses them with corresponding cases. The three kinds of legal liability are civil liability, criminal liability and exposure to administrative sanctions.In Chapter Four, the paper mainly talked about the related regulations on Internet rumors made by German and the United States, the two representative countries in the Two Major Legal Systems in the West (continental law system and Anglo-American law system).In Chapter Five, I will put forward some suggestion on our imperfection to the legislation of network speech.