Does WeChat group chat need to be responsible for the inaction of the group owner?

WeChat group chat is scolded, and the group owner may be responsible for inaction.

Wechat is now an indispensable communication tool for China people. Many things in work and life have to be handled through WeChat, but many people chat through WeChat, which even leads to mutual abuse in group chat.

Recently, the Guangzhou Internet Court reported a typical case, in which it was pointed out that if there was abusive behavior in the WeChat group, the group owner might be responsible for his own slow action or inaction.

According to reports, in the previous case, Li, a property employee in Guangzhou, created a community WeChat group to meet the needs of property management. Among them, many community owners have long published malicious abusive remarks against Zhang in the group, and Zhang has served as the group owner for many times. Li sent a message asking for measures, but nothing happened for more than a year.

Subsequently, Zhang filed an infringement lawsuit against the owner who made abusive remarks in the WeChat group. The court's effective judgment found that the group owner's behavior of making abusive remarks in the group constituted an infringement of the right of reputation, and ordered the group owner to apologize in writing and compensate the mental damage for 2000 yuan.

Zhang believes that the misconduct of the property company is an important reason for its reputation damage, and the lawsuit requires the property company to apologize and compensate the spiritual damage for 20,000 yuan.

Guangzhou Internet Court held through trial that the civil liability arising from employee Li's act of creating WeChat group belongs to the act of performing his job duties and should be borne by the property company. The property company has a duty of care for the infringement in the WeChat group.

The court pointed out that Li, as the manager of WeChat group, has greater authority than ordinary group members to publish group announcements, remove group members from group chats and dissolve WeChat group. Therefore, Li should prevent and stop the infringement within his own authority.

The court found that the property company failed to fulfill the management responsibility of the group owner in time, which aggravated the damage to Zhang's reputation. Its fault was obviously less than that of the direct infringer, and its responsibility should be less than that of the direct infringer.

Wechat group owners must fulfill their duty of care.

The owner of the WeChat group has the responsibility to manage the WeChat group and must fulfill the duty of care. The duty of care mainly comes from three aspects:

First, the behavior of building a group and the management authority enjoyed by the group owner. The direct consequence of group building behavior is to artificially create a virtual space for group chat. Wechat software has set up management authority for the group owner, and the group owner must of course bear certain duty of care to the group members.

Second, the norms of cyberspace governance. The first paragraph of Article 9 of the Regulations on the Management of Internet Group Information Services clearly stipulates that the promoters and managers of Internet groups shall perform the responsibility of group management;

Third, based on the responsibility of a specific identity, according to Article 45 of the Property Management Regulations, property service enterprises should stop acts that violate public security laws and regulations within the property management area. In the above cases, the use of WeChat group in property management should be regarded as an extension of property service places in cyberspace, which openly insults others and is a violation of public security management. Group owners should perform their duties and stop abusive behavior of group owners.