Research On The Internet Defamation

The development of network is convenient to people’s work and life,but it also provides a new means for crime.When the defamation crime combined with information network,a new type of defamation crime is produced.The vagueness of the legal provisions and the inconformity of juridical practice can not effectively combat the crime of Internet defamation,but arouse a hot academic debate on the freedom of speech.In this paper,on the basis of article 246 th provisions of the criminal law,I focus on the behavior cognizance,the standard of conviction,the scope of legal subject and the way of prosecution about the Internet defamation crime,according to the relevant regulations of the judicial interpretation and “Criminal Law Amendment(IX)of the PRC”.This paper mainly includes the following parts:The first part is about the overview of internet defamation crime.As a new type of libel,the internet defamation crime refers to the illegal action that the actor use the network to distribute the false facts that damage the reputation of others with the serious circumstances.Compared with traditional defamation crime,it has the characteristics of the virtuality of the space,the stealthiness of the behavior,the universality of the spread,the complexity of the subject and so on.The second part is about the behavior cognizance of internet defamation crime.“Fabrication” includes making up false fact by oneself and making substantial changes to the information released by others.At the same time,we should distinguish the fact that someone use the internet to express opinions.“Distribution” should be public and it can be determined by the number of objects and the degree of openness of the cyberspace.The behavior of fabricating and distributing does not need to be acted at the same time,because distributing false facts fabricated by other people may also commit libel.The third part is about the standard of the crime.As “serious circumstances” is the conviction circumstances of the libel,the identification should be rely on the single standard and comprehensive standards.The identification of“serious circumstances”is not only rely on the number of clicks,browse and forward,but also combined with the size of the site,the impact on the victim and other factors to make a comprehensive identification.The fourth part is about the legal subject scope of the network defamation crime.Firstly,the malicious communicators rather than ordinary communicators need to bear criminal responsibility.Secondly,the member of the online water army need not to bear criminal responsibility,but the organizer or director need.Finally,the Internet content service provider need to be responsible for their content,and the Internet platform service provider need to bear criminal responsibility only if he clearly know the defamatory information in the internet platform and he does not delete the information intentionally.The fifth part is about the forensics and prosecution of the internet defamation.The fact that public security organ help victim to obtain evidence can solve the problem of obtaining evidence difficultly in internet defamation crime,but there are some problems about lacking of operating standards,violating equal protection of equal legal interests and leading to structural imbalance about “cases accepted at compliant only”.Therefore,it is necessary to explain the “complaint” as a way to expose the crime,rather than “private prosecution”.In addition,the "public order" of “endanger social order and national interest badly” does not include the order of internet space,in order to prevent abusing public power.