FTA:

Taiwanese man sues after Facebook 'like' button click
Oct.26, 2011 in Taiwan

Proving yet again that the idiotic cultural concept of 'saving face at all costs' and defamation are dangerously incompatible, the latest legal ridiculousness to come out of Taiwan is a defamation lawsuit that revolves around someone clicking a Facebook 'like' button.

Featured on hundreds of millions of websites, the Facebook's 'like' button allows users to publicly recommend content they agree with and/or support.

Members can 'like' any page on the internet that features a like button, including content published on Facebook itself.

Here in Taiwan, one particular man has decided that liking something on Facebook is tantamount to defamation. So infuriated by the catastrophic loss of face this has caused him, Hu Jing-an has now taken a Facebook user to court over the matter.

Here we go again...

So the story goes, Hu (photo right) used to run a shoe store called 'Bad Enough Hall' and also started 'Roll Magazine' two years ago.

Hu is no longer the owner of Bad Enough Hall and his magazine went bankrupt 'due to poor financial management'.

According to former employees of the Bad Enough Hall shoestore, Hu still owes some of them unpaid salaries. Frustrated at not being paid, a former employee of Hu's named Emily complained on Facebook in August last year about her situation.

Emily wrote,

How come everyone got their May salary except for me?

Are you playing me for a fool?!


A co-worker at the time called Eric saw the post and chimed in with

Wow, the chamber pot really stinks! Go to hell!


Evidently, despite not making much sense accusing one's chamber pot of really stinking is an insult of the highest order in Taiwan and Hu, furious at the gargantuan and irreversible loss of face Eric's comments caused him, filed a defamation lawsuit against him.

Due to the nature of Facebook and Emily's original post being a public discussion, the content was shared on the Facebook network by its members. One such member, a woman surnamed Hsu, happened to click the 'like' button for Eric's post.

Roughly a year after Hsu clicked like on Facebook, both Eric and Hsu received a court summons to answer to a case against them. Not knowing what the matter was about, it was until the case started last month that the two defendants came to realise they were being sued for defamation by Hu.

Eric was being sued for making the chamber pot comment and Hsu for clicking the 'like' button on Eric's comment.

Despite the obvious frivolous nature of including Hsu in the defamation suit against Eric (not withstanding that not being paid should be a relatively easy matter to prove), Hu's lawyers have argued that

Facebook users sharing other's inappropriate comments, which in turn leads to the comments receiving a bigger audience could still face civil lawsuits and compensation claims.


Of course being Taiwan, this is a perfectly reasonable argument to make. I mean what, just days ago a judge in Taoyuan ruled that wedding engagements are legally binding and who could forget the jail sentence handed down to the Taiwanese blogger for complaining about salty noodles?

Although it's pretty obvious they won't, what seriously needs to be considered here are the greater ramifications of ruling in Hu's favour. Can you imagine a judge ruling that clicking Facebook's like button is tantamount to defamation?

Some content receives hundreds of thousands, if not millions of likes and what, if some precious Taiwanese person decides its defamation they'll be able to cite Hu's case and roll out the lawsuits?

One interesting fact to note is that as ridiculous as this defamation accusation against Hsu sounds, Hu could very well just be fishing for funds.

Not surprisingly, Hu is currently being criminally investigated for his role in a credit card fraud case earlier this year allegedly involving '$400 million TWD' ($13.2 million USD).

Perhaps Hu is getting worried about this case and the possibility that along with jail time, he might have to pay back any money he fraudulently gained. What better way then to start the payback fund with a lawsuit against Facebook users...

Either that or Hu is/was worried that former employees complaining about not being paid probably wasn't going to help his chances in getting off the hook for credit card fraud.

Moral of the story: Don't rip off your former employees and commit credit card fraud?

Hu's defamation case is currently being heard down in Kaohsiung and being Taiwan could quite possibly at this stage go either way. Why Taiwanese judges don't just throw these kind of ridiculous cases out of court before they gain traction is beyond me but defamation is clearly becoming a large problem at large for Taiwanese society.

By all means, if you think you've got a defamation case against someone then do what you think is necessary but suing someone because they 'liked' something?!

Hu Jing-an, for wasting the courts time with your frivolous nonsense, you sir leave me with no other choice then to officially declare your chamber pot as the stinkiest in Taiwan.

Do you hear me?! The stinkiest!


Source - Apple Daily (English)