Man Wins Lawsuit Against Online Vigilante Mob In China

from the the-mob-can-go-too-far... dept

The fervor with which online mobs can take on an issue is well-known, but in China "mob justice" has been taken to a new level, and over the past few years it's become a pretty big issue. While grassroots campaigns to right a wrong can be effective, it's not uncommon for a mob to falsely target someone or to simply go too far. In one such case, a Beijing court has now ruled that the recipient of such mob justice from an online vigilante crowd was wronged and is owed damages from the guy who kicked off the mob response. The case involved a guy who's wife committed suicide. A schoolmate of the wife started posting excerpts from the woman's diary, where it was noted that the guy had had an affair months before the suicide. The mob then basically went nuts -- getting the guy fired from his job and preventing him from getting another job, vandalizing his parents house and posting his photo and contact info all over the internet. The guy who posted the diary is responsible for paying damages, though it's unclear from the article how involved he was in inciting the rest of the mob.
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Filed Under: china, mob justice, vigilante


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Dec 2008 @ 1:33pm

    Those crazy Chinese

    How did the friend get the diary ?
    I assume he lived with his parents, otherwise why would they paint the parents door ?
    Maybe it's due to the melamine and lead in their diets.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mark Regan, 20 Dec 2008 @ 4:04pm

    We do the same thing in this country

    We have Nancy Grace to incite mobs of television viewers with half baked suppositions, conjecture and opinion couched in the name of "journalism" while touting her "law degree" and pretending it is ethical for an attorney to commit slander, libel, and cast innuendo and aspersions toward people who are supposedly innocent until proven guilty.

    Disrespect for our United States Constitution by an attorney (or even a President for that matter) ought to be MORE SEVERELY PUNISHED than violations of the law by citizens who don't know any better.

    Attorneys should be held to a higher standard for observance of due process, constitutional rights, fair play, and justice from the legal system and the media.

    The fact that Nancy Grace still has a job and earns a big paycheck and is allowed by her media bosses to continue her outrageous claims against defenseless folks in jail who cannot defend themselves is akin to an eighth grade bully picking on first graders.

    That same network needs to develop more shows like hers. They could hire Hulk Hogan to go into nursing homes and kick old people around on camera. Or hire Dr. Phil to go into mental hospitals and belittle insane people on live television. And George Bush could personally be shown administering torture to the falsely accused folks at Guantanamo.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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