A hostel owner in Taitung City was last week ordered to pay NT$30,000 (US$1,071) in compensation after he threatened political pundit Wang Ruei-deh (王瑞德) with assault for allegedly calling on his online followers to attack him.
Wang was seeking damages of NT$1 million over a dispute stemming from an online comment Pisces Youth Hostel owner Lin Ho-yi (林和誼) made after the deadly crash of a Taroko Express train on April 2 last year.
Lin wrote on Facebook that the derailment was “caused by Taiwan Railways Administration trolls,” sparking public anger and a subsequent media investigation that found Lin was operating the hostel illegally.
Photo: Wang Ting-fu, Taipei Times
On a trip to Taitung on April 5, Wang, in a livestream, called for support for a “legal hostel” to protect the rights of travelers.
Wang said that after Lin heard his comment on Facebook, the hostel owner posted a slew of allegations on Wang’s Facebook fanpage, including that he had an illicit relationship with a former housekeeper and had enlisted a “cyberarmy” to attack people in Taitung.
Lin also insinuated that Wang was working with a group of hostel owners and a female New Power Party member to trap and extort him, the lawsuit said.
In addition, Wang claimed damages for infringement of his portrait rights and copyright after Lin posted Wang’s video on his own YouTube page.
On June 16, Lin said on Facebook that he was waiting outside the Sanlih Entertainment Television building in Taipei to assault Wang, and included a photograph of the building’s exterior, the lawsuit said.
In his defense, Lin accused Wang of spreading misinformation that led his “cyberarmy” to attack him.
Saying that he was only a pawn, Lin asked who gave Wang the power to order the media to drive him “to the brink of extinction,” causing his followers to harass him and his family.
The New Taipei District Court ruled that most cases accusing someone of manipulating their online followers or directing an Internet trend have an unfavorable outcome for the party making the claim.
Since Lin could not produce any evidence, he would face a similar judgement, the court said.
However, as reposting Wang’s video does constitute an infringement of his copyright and the threat of assault caused mental distress, the judges found Lin guilty and ordered him to pay NT$30,000 in damages.
The ruling can be appealed.
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Restarting the No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant would take up to 18 months, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said today. Kuo was answering questions during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee, where legislators are considering amendments to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條) amid concerns about the consequences of the Pingtung County reactor’s decommissioning scheduled for May 17. Its decommissioning is to mark the end of Taiwan’s nuclear power production. However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of existing
RSS