本帖最后由 匿名 于 2016-12-23 21:44 编辑
正经的来了筒子们。。。 中文总结直达88楼
WU v MONCUR [2016] NZHC 3017 [13 December 2016]
Introduction
[1] This is an action for defamation taken by Yi Wu, also known as Easter Wu, a
businessman and frequent contributor to a forum on an internet website, http://www.skykiwi.com, (Skykiwi), against May Moncur, another contributor to the same forum, who he claims defamed him in comments she made on the forum in response to a post under the username “Wu Fu”.
[2] Ms Moncur was also instrumental in bringing Wu Fu’s post to the attention of
the Truth newspaper, which published an article about the post that included comments from Bob Kerridge of the Auckland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
[3] Mr Wu’s defamation claim originally named a reporter for the Truth
newspaper as the second defendant, a director of the Truth newspaper company (the company) as the third defendant, the company itself as the fourth defendant and Mr Kerridge as the fifth defendant.
[4] The second defendant was unable to be served with the proceedings. It is
believed that he is in Australia. Mr Wu settled with the third and fifth defendants. The fourth defendant was liquidated and has now been struck off the Companies Register altogether. Mr Wu recognises that no real remedy is available against the company, but nonetheless seeks a declaration against it in vindication of his reputation.
[5] Ms Moncur is, in effect, the sole remaining defendant. Mr Wu seeks
$250,000 general damages and $7,500 punitive damages against her. He also seeks a permanent injunction to restrain her from continuing with her defamatory comments.
Username “Wu Fu”
[6] Paragraph 1 of the statement of claim pleads that Mr Wu was a blogger on
Skykiwi under the username “Wu Fu”. I am advised that Wu Fu was short for “Wu Fu De Mai Bi” or Wu Fu’s eyebrow pencil. At paragraph [30] of his brief of evidence Mr Wu stated:
I was one of the veteran bloggers on Skykiwi. I refer to document(s) exhibited as “A” in the common bundle. I enjoyed commenting on the latest news and events. People also liked to view and read my comments on the internet.
[7] However, in evidence before me, Mr Wu claimed that Wu Fu was not him.
When reading paragraph [30] of his brief, Mr Wu stated:
I think maybe me make a change as the “I” here is actually means the “ID”, ID was the blogger because a person, human person cannot be a real blog in the website, it must be a ID.
[8] Mr Wu compared the username “Wu Fu” to a character in a novel. The
username was quite different to the author. He said “[The] ID is not me, it’s as simple as that”.
[9] Mr Wu said that his company and his team organised the username, but it did
not mean it reflected himself or equalled himself. He said he was shocked and surprised how someone could think the username was him. His management team, staff and friends also had access to the username and any number of people could, and did, post comments as Wu Fu.
[10] Mr Wu continued with this reasoning in answering questions about previous posts under the username “Wu Fu”. When asked whether he could recall saying in one of the postings “People complaining about [receiving] illegal [below the minimum] wages normally demonstrate two moral defects, one is greed and the other is stupidity”. Mr Wu responded:
What I mean is that I personally didn’t break the [minimum wage] laws, but if I agree or my team agree to say the minimum wage is not so, so right, what’s the problem?
[11] Mr Wu stated it was not his personal view because that would make enemies. He repeated his assertion that the username under which such comments were made may be related to him or his team, but was not him.
[12] Mr Wu was, however, later interviewed by a reporter who published a newspaper article with Mr Wu’s photograph, under the heading “Businessman backs illegal wages for immigrants”. Mr Wu said he made a complaint to the reporter as
the article did not properly reflect his views, but did not sue him for defamation as it was “not that serious”.
[13] Mr Wu said that the username did not express his view or represent him, continuing to distance himself from it. At one stage he said “I post thousands of posts here with this ID. I mean this ID post thousands of posts”.
[14] When asked about another post about falsifying documentation to get a bank loan, Mr Wu said it was a joke or black humour. He said he was quite a good person
or his blog was quite a good blog because some degree of black humour can make
people think.
[15] If the username “Wu Fu” is not to be identified with Mr Wu, then Mr Wu’s claim that he was defamed by Ms Moncur in comments she made in the forum in response to one of the posts under the username “Wu Fu”, must fail because in her comments Ms Moncur referred not to Mr Wu, but to Wu Fu. Mr Wu was not named and not defamed.
Website forum
[16] The evidence presented to Court discloses that Skykiwi operates an on-line community in New Zealand with over 160,000 registered members. It attracts over 60,000 unique daily IP visits and over 700,000 daily page views. It is apparently the
41st most popular website in New Zealand and reaches 80 per cent of the Chinese
community in New Zealand.
[17] The forum on which Wu Fu and Ms Moncur posted comments is called FML, which I am advised means “Fuck my life”. The forum rules emphasise that it is a forum for people to express their original views and noted that “originality should be negative or controversial and should be meaningful”.
[18] In her evidence, Ms Moncur identified a number of previous posts by Wu Fu, which are relevant as background to the controversy which erupted over the post by Wu Fu and the response by Ms Moncur. Although Ms Moncur has not obtained
translations from a qualified translator, I am satisfied that the gist of the posts are translated sufficiently accurately by Ms Moncur. |