Online Defamation Lawsuits Swamp Courthouses Around Globe

A lady in London was facing a libel action (HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE, QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION. Claim number HQ12D05081 Mr Kirby Kearns and Mrs Lesley Kemp) after she complained about her employer on twitter. Lesley Kemp was paid £146 for her translation work by a company Resolution Productions. However, £25 were deducted as bank fees. Kempt rented on her twitter account and called the company 'disgraceful'.

Qatar based Resolutions Productions paid the £25, then sued her for libel over her tweets. They are seeking £50,000 in damages and £70,000 in cost.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, Amy Nicholls of South Carolina was sued (The Court of Common Pleas in Medina County, Ohio, Case No. 13CIV0351) by an Ohio-based company Med Express over a negative review she left at the company's eBay seller account. Nicholls was surprised by a postage-due for products she ordered online which she paid in full plus shipping fees, and left a negative review "'Order arrived with postage due with no communication from seller beforehand." on the transaction. Med Express admitted the comment was true, but nevertheless not happy it might hurt their business.

What was absent from the picture was eBay, the ecommerce giant where the transaction and user feedbacks took place. EBay set up a reviewing system as an essential and critical feature to remedy the uncertainty and unfamiliarity of an online auction place. If eBay did not back up its user who used the system exactly as it is supposed to work, then eBay literally set up a trap for its users. In this case, standing by is not only coward, unethical, but also suicidal.

So you could be sued for comments made on Twitter, or negative reviews left at eBay even though they are truthful and factual. You might find a lawyer who thought your case was significant enough that they would defend you pro bono. However, for every publicized cases with happy ending, there are many who have concluded the other way.

Li Tiantian

心酸，想哭
论坛：江湖论剑作者：alemon发表时间：2011-05-28 00:08

刚放出来的李天天律师在推特上的讲述，只有你想不到，没有他们做不到的。释放，也是一种减少恐惧的方式吧……

@litiantian：我与谁开房，估计我男朋友都不想关心的问题，警察先关心了。他们先找到男方做了笔录，录的很细，谁出的钱，谁先提议去开房，做了几次，谁先挑逗的谁，要求我说的越细越好。

@litiantian：我进去以后，他们还搜了我与男朋友住的房子。所有的东西搜了一遍。我出来才知道。还逼我男朋友看我与其他人开过房的录像，还让他哥哥姐姐。

@litiantian：我出来的时候人是飘着的，走路走不稳，身体好象没有重量不是自己的。被回新疆下飞机后给男朋友打电话才知道警察找过他好多次，还找他单位，找他哥哥姐姐，要求他与我分手，写下分手的东西，我男朋友不写，说不行你们可以把我也关进去，就是别逼我，你们有本事把李天天毙了，我也不会写那样的东西的。

@litiantian：新疆家里人通过我男朋友知道我进去了，3个月都没有睡好觉，担心我是不是出不来了，因为抓我的时候家里进去8个左右的人，有抓我的，有抢我手机的，有骂我的，有找电脑搬电脑的，家里的大猫也从此丢了不回家了。

@litiantian：我有过几次一夜性质的那样的事情，基本都是一次性的，完了谁也不认识谁，也没有什么思想交流的那样的事情，说白了就是与没有感情的，简单交流还不坏的男人开过几次钟点房。目前上海开房都有记录很容易查出来。

@litiantian：我男朋友说我在他们嘴里就是垃圾，坏得不能再坏的人，好在他的心里抗压能力还好，并没有怎么受不了，让他受不了的是警察为这些事情去找他的哥哥姐姐，给他们添堵，我男朋友最生气的是这个，他父母去势的早，哥哥姐姐年龄大了身体也不好。

@litiantian：说了起码不会死，否则死了怎么办？

@litiantian：他们说不会给我男朋友看的，可我被回新疆（他们要我回新疆，但我的钱买了飞机票），到妹妹家后给我男朋友打电话，我男朋友首先就说起这个事情----警察把我开房的证据给他看了，他不看，他们还逼着一定要他看。

@litiantian：在那里住了3天，晚上6人的夜宵花了400多，我心痛政府的钱，指责他们浪费，他们说上级接受了我的意见。换地。

@litiantian：我每天锻练运动，但还是经常见他们就心惊肉跳（虽然我都是开着玩笑于他们交流，但这是表面，为了尊严做出来的，心惊肉跳才我我状态的本质）。为少心惊肉跳，我基本白天睡，夜里运动洗看电视。彻底昼夜颠倒。谁要以后进去就学我这样。以减少心惊肉跳的时间。

@litiantian：看守我的人总是把电视摇控让我用，人的味道我还是闻到了，警察看我没有穿袜子还关心的要我穿上，怕我冷，人味我也闻到了。都是有人味的人，但我却感觉面对的是师子老虎，因为他们不给我阳光，窗子。而这个决定是上级的。中国越是上面人越没有人味。越是正式的决定越没有人味。

@litiantian：律师这花必须在民主的土壤上才芳香艳丽，否则律师的成功都象塑料假花，让人闻不出香气，越漂亮的律师花，越是发出恶臭味。

@litiantian：法律，我很有才华，但律师目前是靠关系和权利赚钱，搞关系与权利勾结不是我的长项。所以不干律师，对我的精神，身体都好。越卑鄙越成功，律师界。话有点大和狂，但不一定是错的。

@litiantian：能说出的恐惧还是小恐惧，不敢说的恐惧才是大恐惧，给猫说好话的老鼠一定内心受到了特大恐惧的袭击，我想很可能是这样。就像有的人会爱上让他她怕的人，可能。人性很复杂，好在是人都想摆脱恐惧。这才是我们努力的重点，比较人与人对待恐惧的不同反应没有什么意思，可能。

@litiantian：你是明白人。还知道世界上有无法忍受的事情，很多人认为忍受是必须的。

@litiantian：找个善良的男人女人在一起，遇到难都会多些支持。

@litiantian：真不好意思把这些涉性的 内容写出来，但不写心里更憋屈。 虽然当时甚至是开着玩笑配合警察做那些涉性的调查笔露的，但内心还是有很深的羞辱感。像是被人拳打脚踢，我还必须笑着说打得不痛一样，无奈，无助，恐惧感还是很强。

@litiantian：好在，我没有在警察面前掉过一滴眼泪，也没有让自己的情绪失控过。当我说你们不给我请律师，不在你们笔录上填写询问人记录人的名字，我就再不给你们笔录上签一个名字，警察说你是想挨打吗？站起身走到了我跟前要打我，我说我也许会咬下你的耳朵或脖子，他上来就抓住了我头发，拿起餐巾纸盒要打我。

@litiantian：我的肉体不被打更重要，在打和回答之间我选后者。

@litiantian：真不好意思把这些涉性的 内容写出来，但不写心里更憋屈。

We shall not forget what this generation have suffered under the Communists regime.

Scholar Set Up Collaborative Website to Fight Child Slavery

At least hundreds Chinese children are being abducted on any given day from their parents. They will be resold several times, until end of in the hands of some 'beggar camp', where they would be confined in cages and trained to be a qualified children beggars. Many of them would be further fixed by pouring acids on their body, or amputation of all 4 limbs, so that they look more visually appealing to sympathetic walkers passing by. At the beginning, many of these child slaves were acquired from poor families in remote rural countryside or government run orphanages. In recent years, because of 'high demand', the major source changed to abduction from busy intersections in major cities. Many city residents' children went missing this way every day, including many from rather well off background. It has become a nightmare for all young parents, and a great factor in social instability. However, police rarely act on these kind of cases, even when the family was able, after extremely hard works and with a great deal of luck, to identify the whereabout of their missing children, because there is little room to make profit. But the most daunting task is to find the children in a country as large as the US, with 5 times the populations.

Scholar Yu Jianrong had an idea on how to fight this with, what else, Twitter (or micro-blog as commonly referred in China). Yu set up a micro-blog account where people can post pictures all the child beggar they ran into in real time, so that parents who have children missing can see them and identify them and act accordingly. Yu suggested a standard three steps protocol: 1) Give a small amount of money, not too little that the child would be beaten by their master as punishment for incompetent, not too much that they will not appear the next day; 2) quickly take a picture of the child with recognizable face features using cell phone; 3) send the picture to the micro-blog website dedicated for this cause.

Within days after the page was set up, more than 100 thousand people 'followed' the thread. More than 2,000 pictures of children beggars were uploaded.

Yu's ingenious idea marked a historic moment where the Internet was put into real use to attack a social issue with tremendous impact on the entire society from bottom to top elite. To make money, the children slaves would have to work in prosperous cities where people are in general more tech-savvy and eager to participate for a good cause (think, 'Egypt'). This operation could eliminate the motivation for children slave in China, and destroy the entire production line.

The police's inaction is evident from the existence of many well-known long established children beggar training camps with no harassment from the government at all. For example, in the picture a young child with missing legs were being trained in Gongxiao Village, Gongji Twonship, Taihe County, Fuyang City, Anhui Province. Many local communist officials are share holders of this kind of businesses. Begging industry has been the sole major revenue source for this extremely wealthy area. Most people are involved in children slavery industry one way or another.

Twit Forward

Two recent cases in China showed twitter (actually, it's state sponsored Chinese-clones because twitter is barred by the authority) could be one WMD for responsible Chinese Internet users.

In Jiangxi Province, an official eviction went wrong when three of the residents set themselves on fire in protesting the procedure. Although there are hundreds of police, paramilitary forces and even an ambulance at the scene. The senior communist officials order the demolition went ahead, and policemen blocked relatives and bystanders to rescue the burning individuals until they shrank to black carbons. The deceased had a dispute with the government on the proper amount of compensation for the building. However, it turned out as now we finally know, the eviction was not even lawful. There was no eviction orders from the court nor the local government. Local government jailed relatives to stop them from making a scene, but two were able to fled as far as the women's restroom in a nearby airport on the way to Beijing for a petition. The airport was not operated by the aforementioned local government, so although they summoned an army of public employees to surround the restroom, the two women were able to broadcast their situation online before they were taken away by force. The online broadcasting triggered a mass twitting phenomenon while the messages were followed and forwarded millions of time, which triggered the network monitoring agency's attention of the central government. The agency's evaluation of the incident is that it mounts to the scale of social stability level so that it should be handled carefully. The central government ordered the local government to release jailed relatives and to renegotiate a fair compensation for the demolished building.

Another incident happened in Beijing. An author was arrested by police in Shaanxi Province because he published an investigative report of people's sufferings on a state project. Although the project had been over dozens of years ago, thousands of people are still homeless because their land were taken away for the project and then reassigned to other people. Also thanks to mass twitting and forwarding, the author was granted a bail.

Although you can vote for the government officials or your representatives, but you do can twit, follow and forward. A few clicks might help save some good people's life. There is no excuse for not doing that.

Most Popular Japanese in China

The most popular Japanese among Chinese netizens at this time is 27 years old AV star Aoi Sora. A Chinese Internet surfer came across Aoi's Twitter account accidentally, and posted it on a Chinese forum. Within days, Aoi's fan base saw a boom at a rate of thousands more per hour. While Twitter is blocked by the communism government, tens of thousands of Chinese netizens learned how to circumvent the Great FireWall, 'flip-over-the-wall', overnight to follow Aoi. Aoi was happily surprised by the surge of followers from China, and started writing a Chinese edition of her twitts.

Aoi's image was further glorified when she revealed that she would raise fund for disaster relief effort for people in Yushu area, hit recently by a major earthquake. Aoi only twitted this idea in her Japanese account, but not the Chinese account. Chinese followers were touched by her consideration, and vowed to contribute.

Other Japanese AV stars favored by Chinese include Asakawa Ran (Korean) and Ai Lijima.

The last time a major Internet technology was introduced to Chinese netizen was when a Taiwan female legislature (Chu Mei-feng)'s sex video was published by a Taiwan newspaper in its entirety of almost one hour of continuous sex, foreplay and political phone calls on the bed stuff. Millions of Chinese learned to use p2p file sharing service to download the video at home. Chu later married to a man in mainland China who knew her from the video.