XXIII

Although public figures shall have a certain degree of tolerance for the attention of public opinion, supervision and even criticism, ordinary citizens shall still maintain a cautious and objective attitude when publicly disseminating information about public figures, and at the same time explain the legal source of the information, so as not to misrepresent the personality image of public figures.Fabricating and disseminating negative information of the public figure may constitute an infringement on the right of reputation.

Case 1: H has a book about the personal life of the famous director Z.It is published by Company Q.Z’s large portrait and striking signature constitute the main content of the cover of the book.Z’s personal life is the main content of the book, and it indicates that Z once had a “close relationship” with a female star during his marriage to another woman.After the book was launched, it immediately caused a sensation.Dozens of newspapers, websites and other media across the country have written a lot of text reports, video reports, reprints and serials of the book with titles such as “Z’s First Biography Revealing His Love Stories”, “Z Published a New Book to Tell the Love Story with XX”, etc.There were thousands of news readers, online readers and book buyers, and the amount of Internet clicks was huge.Z believed that H and Company Q used his personal portrait, forged his signature to publish the book without the authorization, and many contents which revealed Z’s privacy in the book were unverif ied by Z and other parties, thus, this book seriously violated Z’s right of portrait, name and reputation.((2010) Gao Min Zhong Zi No.411)

The court held that: With regard to personal life information, citizens have the right to decide whether or not and in what way to disclose information to the public.In the case of disclosing private life information to the public, the person concerned shall have the right to decide whether to appear in front of the public in any manner in order to protect his or her personality from distortion and ugliness.Although compared to ordinary citizens, public figures bear more social responsibilities and obligations, they will inevitably receive the attention, supervision and even criticism of public opinion, which may affect their rights negatively.Although public figures should have a certain degree of tolerance for the attention of public opinion, supervision and even criticism, necessary protection should still be given to their private information.Whether social media or ordinary citizens, one should still be cautious and objective publicly when disseminating relevant information of public figures, and at the same time, the legal source of information should be explained to avoid the misrepresentation of the personal image of public figures.(https://www.daowen.com)

The cover design of the book in question used Z’s portrait of and was supplemented by Z’s signature, which may objectively leave an impression on the public that this book was published with Z’s authorization.In addition, the contents of Z’s emotional part in the book was written and narrated in the form of “he or Z said”, without the source of the materials, which undoubtedly deepened the reader’s misunderstanding.Therefore, the improper behavior of H and Company Q interfered with Z’s freedom of expression of his emotional life, violated Z’s expectations of good social evaluation based on his own conduct, and inevitably caused the public to believe a distorted understanding of his personality and make negative evaluations about Z.

Case 2: Reporter T successively published two articles titled, “Associate Professor of University B Was Expelled from the Party” and “Detailed Truth of the Relationship between the Associate Professor of University B and Female Foreign Students”.The articles reported that the associate professor in the school of international relations of University B, who had an abnormal relationship with a Singaporean female student, was expelled from the party and his teaching post and teaching qualification were revoked.In the latter article, without giving strong evidence,T speculated that W was the female party in the above-mentioned incident, and added a tag containing the Chinese name of “W” to guide netizens to forward it on a large scale.After W sued over the incident, the reporter pleaded that W belongs to the category of a public figure and her personality right should be limited.In response to the second article,the reporter advocated that it was only reproduced, which belongs to free speech.((2017) Jing 01 Min Zhong No.2722)

The court held that: Although the reputation right of public figures is limited to some extent, it is not completely unprotected.The contents of the second article are obviously inadequate and unjust in the factual speculation and qualitative evaluation, which may damage W’s reputation as the heroine of the incident.When T, who has many fans, reposted this article, not only did he not fulfill his due diligence based on the fact that the reposted article may have a huge negative effect on W’s reputation, but also added the label “W”, which makes the directivity much clearer.The title “Detailed Truth” he added is more misleading.T had subjective faults and his behaviors objectively caused an inevitable reduction in W’s social evaluation in because of the spread of this article and the damage to her reputation.