In order to punish illegal and criminal activities of online violence in accordance with the law and effectively safeguard citizens' personality rights and interests and normal online order, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Civil Code, Civil Procedure Law and Public Security Administration Punishment Law, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security have drafted the Guiding Opinions on Lawfully Punishing Online Violent Crimes (Draft for Comments) [hereinafter referred to as the "Guiding Opinions (Draft for Comments)", which are being publicly solicited for comments. The deadline for feedback is June 2023, 6.

How many young people are paying attention to the "20 Articles for Punishing Internet Violence" that is publicly solicited for opinion? What are their opinions and expectations? As soon as the "Guiding Opinions (Draft for Comments)" was released, China Youth Daily conducted a questionnaire survey of young respondents through a professional survey platform to collect young people's voices on the prevention and treatment of online violence.

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Humiliation, information harassment, privacy leakage... Today, online violence is plundering our lives in various forms, and the impact of this has never stopped. A few days ago, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security drafted the Guiding Opinions on Lawfully Punishing Online Violence Crimes (Draft for Comments), which are now open to the public for comments. Have you paid attention to this?

Last week, a survey of 1000,61 young people conducted by the Social Survey Center of China Youth Daily (wenjuan.com) showed that 8.23% of the interviewed young people paid attention to the "Guiding Opinions (Draft for Comments)", of which 3.35% have already submitted opinions, and 5.88% of the interviewed young people are ready to understand. 1.93% of the youth surveyed expect to be prosecuted for more serious online abuses. To prevent online violence, 9.<>% of the interviewed young people believe that platforms should guard the first line of defense.

68.1% of the young people interviewed expect the public security organs to provide assistance when the victim has real difficulties in providing evidence

In May this year, Luo Tingan, a 5-year-old girl in Shenzhen, received a video forwarded by a friend, opened it and found that her words had been spliced and distorted, the video had more than one million views, and the comment area was flooded with a large number of online abuse and attacks, which also affected her life. However, when she angrily sent a lawyer's letter to the self-media company that produced the video, the attitude of the other party made her even more angry. "They don't care at all, anyway, the traffic is already there, they really have to go through legal procedures, they just need to take down the video and apologize to me." But for me, the proceedings were too long, and it took two days just to issue the lawyer's letter, during which I watched the video views soar from a few thousand to a million. ”

"I don't even know where the first step to defend my rights is going." Zhang Weilu, a post-90s teacher in Fuzhou, said that online violence is often an intensifying process, and when it comes time to defend rights, he has already suffered a lot of harm, "it takes money and time, and these costs make it difficult to defend rights."

What are the difficulties for ordinary people to defend their rights in the face of online violence? In the survey, nearly seventy percent (69.6%) of the interviewed young people said that it was difficult to find online abusers under the condition of online anonymity, 64.2% of the interviewed young people pointed out that the time and money costs were extremely high, 55.3% of the interviewed young people thought it was difficult to collect evidence, and 52.7% of the interviewed young people pointed out that it was difficult to file a case and the litigation procedures were not smooth.

Li Xiaoman, an associate professor at Wuhan University's School of Journalism and Communication, said that abuse, defamation and other acts committed through the Internet are usually private prosecution cases, and victims need to collect evidence themselves. However, on the Internet, it is very difficult to collect evidence, and the most prominent problem encountered by many victims of online abuse when seeking legal help is the inability to obtain the real name of the perpetrator.

Recently, in the "Guiding Opinions (Draft for Comments)" drafted by the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security, it is pointed out that litigation procedures should be smoothed and effective legal remedies provided in a timely manner. The Guiding Opinions (Draft for Comments) also mentions the implementation of legal provisions on public security organs' assistance in the collection of evidence, and the strengthening of case filing supervision. In the survey, 68.1% of the interviewed young people expected the public security organs to provide assistance when the victims had difficulties in providing evidence, and 66.1% of the interviewed young people expected to strengthen the supervision of case filing, and should file cases in a timely manner.

"The power of individuals is limited, for example, a lot of information will be deleted or there is no way to collect it, if the public security organs can assist in the collection of evidence, one is to grasp the information more quickly, and the other is to play a deterrent role." Wang Zhiqing, a first-year journalism student studying at a university, said.

Li Xiaoman said that the effectiveness of the law lies not only in the strength of punishment, but also in the timeliness and inevasibility of punishment. She believes that the Guiding Opinions (Draft for Comments) are of great significance, such as clarifying the protection of minors, persons with disabilities and other groups, emphasizing the responsibility of platforms, confirming the manifestations, social harm, legal remedies and other aspects of online violence, and proposing targeted ways to solve problems such as difficulty in filing cases, collecting evidence, and prosecuting public prosecution, which is a key step on the road to punishing online violence.

88.1% of the youth surveyed wanted to prosecute more serious online abuse

The Guiding Opinions (Draft for Comments) points out that, in accordance with the second paragraph of article 88 of the Criminal Law, where the crime of insult or slander is committed, seriously endangering social order and national interests, public prosecution shall be instituted. Judgments shall be made on whether online insults or defamation seriously endanger social order based on factors such as the target of the infringement, the motive and purpose, the mode of conduct, the scope of information dissemination, and the harmful consequences. In the survey, 1.<>% of the young people surveyed expected to be prosecuted for more serious online abuse.

Wang Zhiqing believes that the way of public prosecution reflects the strength of punishing online violence, "Although much of online violence occurs in the virtual world, it does affect the lives of ordinary citizens, and may even endanger social order, and needs to be taken seriously at the legal level." ”

"This document is a guide for the procuratorial and judicial organs, and also an education for the people." Jiang Daqiao (pseudonym), who is engaged in law-related work in Guangdong, believes that the conditions for initiating a public prosecution in the Guiding Opinions (Draft for Comments) can remind victims and relevant authorities to a certain extent what methods can be used to punish online violence, and "also reflect the importance attached to punishing online violence."

Luo Tingan is also very much looking forward to prosecuting more serious online violence, "I think many victims of online violence may give up their rights protection because of the cumbersome litigation process and long period, if the timeliness of filing a public prosecution is stronger, such as opening a special channel for online violence, more people can actively protect their rights and interests when they are attacked online." ”

The Guiding Opinions (Draft for Comments) point out that where online violence harms the public interest, the people's procuratorates may file a public interest lawsuit with the people's court in accordance with law. In the survey, 88.7% of the interviewed young people expected to protect the public interest through public interest litigation.

Regarding the major illegal and criminal acts of online violence mentioned in the Guiding Opinions (Draft for Comments), the interviewed youth expect severe punishment for online insults (84.9%), online defamation (74.1%), and infringement of citizens' personal information (64.0%). In addition, there are: offline nuisance behavior (44.4%), malicious marketing hype behavior carried out through online violence (41.6%), etc.

Luo Tingan said that "offline nuisance" is her most intolerable behavior, "Compared with the bad comments and harassing private messages on the Internet, I think what is more terrible is that online violence will affect my work and even my family, which makes me more unacceptable." ”

"I feel like a lot of times these behaviors don't happen alone, but are interconnected or simultaneous on a chain." Wang Zhiqing said she was most looking forward to severely punishing "offline nuisance" and "online defamation."

93.9% of the interviewed young people believe that platforms should guard the first line of defense against online violence

Liu Deliang, director of the Asia-Pacific Network Law Research Center, said that the cost of information dissemination on the Internet is extremely low, resulting in a high cost of controlling subsequent transmission. "For example, we posted an article or a picture on the Internet and wanted to withdraw it, but maybe someone else has already taken a screenshot or spread it through other channels. Therefore, there must be precautions against online violence, which is inseparable from the participation of the platform."

According to the survey, 93.9% of the interviewed young people believe that platforms should guard the first line of defense to prevent online violence. 74.1% of the interviewed young people expect to be held accountable in accordance with the law for the platform's behavior of promoting traffic chasing.

"I think there needs to be more regulation of the platform." Zhang Weilu said that many times the platform ignores the legitimate rights and interests of users for the sake of traffic, "although some videos involve online violence, but because the traffic data is too good, even if many people complain and report, the platform will not easily remove the video."

Liu Deliang believes that platforms should undertake the obligation of prior review, discover some infringing information in a timely manner, and "control online violence should follow the idea of both cracking down and preventing."

Jiang Daqiao believes that platforms must first review information, such as information involving pornography, violence and personal privacy must be absolutely prohibited; Second, for some information suspected of causing controversy, the platform should intervene in advance.

"I think the management of the platform is also constantly improving, such as blocking and warning some keywords, or banning certain accounts." Luo Tingan said that although the spread of the video had a certain impact on her, when she opened the comment area again one day, she found that some bad comments were significantly reduced, "as if the platform identified and blocked."

In the survey, 78.9% of the interviewed young people believed that the platform should conduct real-time monitoring of public opinion and establish an emergency reporting mechanism for public opinion related to online violence, and 64.0% of the interviewed young people suggested strengthening the real-name mechanism so that illegal accounts can be punished and tracked. The young people interviewed believe that platforms should also bear the following responsibilities: providing netizens with channels for complaints or reports (62.6%), establishing an early warning and prevention mechanism for online violence, and strengthening content identification and early warning (62.0%).

Liu Deliang believes that the Guiding Opinions (Draft for Comments) proposes targeted ways to solve all aspects of the difficulty of rights protection, providing a clearer basis for China's lawful management of online violence. However, in the process of implementation, it is also necessary to avoid abuse, and care should be taken not to arbitrarily expand the concept of online violence, and not to regard the normal public opinion supervision and criticism as online violence.

In addition to platform responsibility, Wang Zhiqing believes that more psychological counseling should also be given to victims of online violence, "such as setting up special psychological clinics for targeted comfort and treatment."

Among the interviewed youth, 00.20% were post-3s, 95.19% were post-8s, 90.34% were post-2s, 85.15% were post-0s, and 80.10% were post-7s. 38.8% in first-tier cities, 37.7% in second-tier cities, 18.6% in third- and fourth-tier cities, 3.3% in counties or towns, and 1.6% in rural areas.

China Youth Daily / China Youth Network trainee reporter Wu Xinyu Reporter Wang Pinzhi Intern Yang Wanshu Lilac Xueyu Source: China Youth Daily