MCLC: China tightens grip on social media

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: pjmooney <pjmooney at me.com>
Subject: China tightens grip on social media
***********************************************************

Source: WSJ (9/9/13):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324549004579065113098846226.h
tml?mod=rss_asia_whats_news

China Tightens Grip on Social Media

BEIJING—Chinese authorities said that social-media users who post comments
considered to be slanderous could face prison if the posts attract wide
attention—a ruling free-speech advocates criticized as an attempt to give
legal backing to the suppression of online dissent.

Internet users will face charges of defamation—and a possible three-year
prison term—if they create slanderous content that attracts at least 5,000
hits or is reposted at least 500 times, according to the judicial
interpretation, copies of which were posted to state-media websites on
Monday.

The document said slanderous posts that cause "psychological imbalance,
self-mutilation, suicide or other serious consequences" would also be
considered defamatory.

Companies and people who seek to profit from slanderous postings face
stiff fines and jail terms. People who start online rumors will be
considered guilty of the crime of provocation and incitement, a crime
previously applied to those who vandalize property, pick fights or create
trouble in public places.

The new interpretation—jointly issued by China's Supreme People's Court
and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the top prosecutors'
office—provides Beijing with an added legal basis for its long-running
effort to control conversation online.

Lawyers criticized the new ruling as overly broad and an attempt to
discourage government critics. "What's the point in even discussing this?"
wrote lawyer Liang Xianglu. "Law is not a root that will ever truly grow
in this patch of earth. Instead it will always be a stick wielded by a
bunch of thugs."

Another lawyer, Wang Kesheng, wondered on his microblog account how the
new rules would have affected Luo Changping, a journalist whose posts led
to the dismissal of a top official this year.

The official Xinhua news agency quoted the Supreme People's Procuratorate
spokesman Sun Jungong as saying the new interpretation isn't intended to
discourage Internet users from exposing official wrongdoing.

"Even if some details of the allegations or what has been exposed aren't
true, as long as [Internet users] aren't intentionally fabricating
information to slander others...they won't be prosecuted on charges of
defamation," Xinhua quoted Mr. Sun as saying.

Authorities in charge of propaganda have grown increasingly jittery over
the spread of social media, in particular Twitter-style microblogging
services like Sina Corp's popular Weibo, which have challenged state
media's previous dominance in disseminating information.

In recent months, the government has stepped up efforts to manage online
activity, detaining dozens for spreading rumors and warning influential
microbloggers with large numbers of followers to watch what they say.

Many posts critical of Monday's interpretation were deleted within hours
of being posted.

Among the recent detentions were two men apprehended by Beijing police on
Aug. 22 on suspicion of creating rumors in an effort to gain followers on
Weibo. State media said the pair falsely claimed that an outspoken major
general in the People's Liberation Army was a deserter with family living
in the U.S., in addition to spreading other untruths.

Beijing police also announced last month that they had detained a local
newspaper journalist, Liu Hu, on suspicion of provocation and incitement,
though police didn't say why.

Several local media reports said that a week earlier, Mr. Liu had
forwarded a social-media post alleging wrongdoing by a top official at the
State Administration of Industry and Commerce, a business regulator.

Those cases and others have prompted questions from some lawyers and
scholars about whether and how criminal laws should be applied in
cyberspace.

In a report published Thursday and since deleted from its website, the
influential Southern Weekly newspaper challenged the use of the charges of
provocation and incitement in online cases.

The report quoted legal scholars who argued that the crime applied to
actions that have negative consequences in physical public spaces like
markets and airports, not in cyberspace.

The report also noted that defamation was a matter for a civil lawsuit,
not criminal prosecution, except in cases where the defamatory statements
"seriously threaten social stability or national interests."

By expanding the scope of both crimes to cover online activity, the new
judicial interpretation "violates the principles of criminal law," said Xu
Xin, a law professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology.

Mr. Xu took particular exception to the expanded use of provocation and
incitement, which he described as a "catchall" crime that is often abused
by authorities. "The legal community has been calling for this crime to be
eliminated for years," he said.

While admitting that rumor-spreading is a problem on Chinese social-media
sites, free-speech advocates argue that authorities often define rumor
broadly as anything that doesn't appear on state media, which is
rigorously censored.

The expanded threat of prosecution prompted an outpouring of gallows humor
on Sina Weibo. A number of postings joked that, instead of asking
influential users to repost messages, they would instead start asking not
to have their messages reposted.

Others forwarded along a new slogan: "If you love someone, repost him. If
you hate someone, repost him, too."

Write to Josh Chin at josh.chin at wsj.com

A version of this article appeared September 10, 2013, on page A8 in the
U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: China Tightens
Grip On Social Media.