A former co-president of the Harvard Asia Law Society has looked into the potentially contentious issue of Chinese web users taking legal action in cases related to web censorship. It raises the prospect of China’s courts siding with authorities in not wanting to allow private citizens to tackle websites – such as the Twitter clone Sina Weibo – over censored posts or accounts.
The central quandary is:
Free speech advocates in China should be watching too. A rule prohibiting courts from hearing all cases that center on the deletion of online expression means that service providers like Sina — not to mention the government — can freely delete users, or their words, with no legal recourse. The government can be forgiven for worrying that jilted netizens stand ready to clog its court system, but the language of the memorandum smacks more of denial and wishful thinking than of a carefully reasoned solution to this dilemma.
We encourage you to read the whole post over on Tea Leaf Nation, at the source link below, which includes the story of a case that bodes ill for this means of legal recourse.
The post Chinese Courts Facing Dilemma Over Web Censorship-Related Lawsuits appeared first on Tech in Asia.