Wide dissemination of 'online rumours' in China could see authors jailed for defamation

In a document issued on Monday the Court said that authors of online rumours would be deemed to have been guilty of a serious case of defamation if those published comments are "clicked and viewed more than 5000 times, or reposted more than 500 times", according to a report by Tech In Asia.

Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported that the "judicial interpretation" given by the Supreme Court provides answers about the criteria needed for criminal prosecutions to be brought for illegal activities online. Authors found to have posted widely reposted rumours could face three years in prison, according to the Xinhua report.

Under the new rules, authors who posted online rumours containing false allegations of corruption by public officials will be able to avoid criminal penalties for defamation if they can show that the content was not deliberately untrue, according to a report by the South China Morning Post. The newspaper reported that the new rules came into effect on Monday.

Online rumours found to cause mental illness, self-harm, suicide, or which lead to mass protests, ethnic or religious clashes, damage China's image or "cause a bad international effect" will also be deemed to be serious cases punishable by a jail sentence, according to the South China Morning Post's report.

"It is quite usual for Chinese law to evaluate the gravity of a proscribed action by reference to a quantification of its result," technology, media and telecoms expert Peter Bullock of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said. "This can tip a civil law wrong into a criminal offence simply depending on the amount of money involved. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that jail time should be handed down under these new regulations for libellous posts which are either forwarded more than 500 times or viewed more than 5,000 times."

"However, whether an online comment becomes notorious or goes viral is usually completely outside the control of the original author, and so places the fate of those responsible for ill-advised online comment in the lap of the Gods. It may be that the resulting chilling effect on the use of the internet in China is fully intended, however capable of unfair results in practice," he added.