The fate of Pan Heng-hsu (潘恆旭), creative director of public relations at Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) campaign headquarters, is now in the hands of prosecutors in what police say is case of Internet libel.
In mid-August, several posts appeared on a local Web forum related to a novel written by Huang Hsin-sheng (黃新生), a retired employee at TV station CTS.
The posts told stories about conflicts among staff at the TV station and hinted at illicit amorous relationships.
This, according to reports, caused substantial harm to the reputations of some people at the TV station.
On Aug. 26, the company running the Web site where the forum appeared temporarily closed the forum following a complaint by one of the people mentioned.
When inspecting the Web site's traffic records, police found that the postings came from Pan's home PC and a PC in an Internet cafe.
In fact, the police investigation indicated that Pan himself, using several different aliases, had posted the sensational rumors.
When interviewed by the police, Pan admitted posting the stories, saying that he was not familiar with either Huang or the person reporting the case to the police.
He added that the information posted was given to him by other people.
However, he insisted that he had not submitted the posts on behalf of anyone else, but at the same time denied any responsibilty for libel.
Following the interview with Pan, police turned the case over to the prosecutors.
But it seems that Pan's case is not unique in Taiwan.
Liu You-li (劉幼琍), professor in the Graduate Institute of Radio and Television in the College of Communication at National Chengchi University, said that many people use the anonymity of the Internet to harm other people, resulting in loose Internet media ethics.
Liu said he hopes that the exposure of Pan's case will be a warning to Internet users and lead to the formation of such ethics.
Police sources say that Internet forums and bulletin boards are public space, and that Internet users, as part of their copnstitutional right of free speech, have the right to publish their opinions and participate in discussions.
Judicial authorities currently take a passive approach to policing the Internet.
If, however, someone reports an invasion of privacy, libel or inappropriate discussions, such reports will be handled according to the appropriate laws.
By August this year, police had handled over 60 such cases.
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