The Automotive Quality Engineer Network was sued for publishing negative Tesla content, and the court has accepted it

Reporter Chen Qingyuan Intern Li Shuangshuang

Edited by Zhang Xun

On April 27, Toutiao user “Five Thousand Years Rabbit” posted a message saying that he was being sued by Tesla.

In April 2021, after the “Tesla female car owner’s rights protection incident” was fermented by public opinion, the user, as a fan of Tesla and a practitioner in the auto industry, had a technical discussion online. During this period, he quarreled with other Tesla fans on Toutiao today, some of which involved Tesla in the process.

The user told the Red Star News reporter that after Tesla Legal had privately messaged him nearly a year ago, he had deleted the relevant remarks, believing that his actions were not infringing. In May 2021, Tesla sued him and Toutiao to the Beijing Internet Court for a claim of 500,000 yuan on the grounds of a reputational dispute. At present, he has received relevant information about the court’s acceptance of the case.

↑The court acceptance information received by the user

Party: Excessive remarks by Tesla fans have been deleted

At the Shanghai Auto Show on April 19, 2021, a car owner climbed onto the roof of the Tesla booth to defend his rights, saying that his Tesla car had problems such as brake failure, and believed that Tesla should be responsible for the accident that occurred in his vehicle. After the relevant person in charge of Tesla stated that there was “someone behind” the rights defender, the incident quickly attracted social attention.

“I do quality. After encountering a fault, what I want to do is to reproduce and study the mechanism and find a solution.” Today’s headline user “Five Thousand Years of Rabbit” said that he has been in the automotive industry for 10 years and once Has done R&D and is now an automotive quality engineer. After the Tesla roof protection incident, the user made a technical analysis and discussion, and published an article on “Tesla car brake technology problems” on the Internet.

↑ “Five thousand years of rabbits” account information on Toutiao

“The Rabbit of Five Thousand Years” told the Red Star News reporter, “I am very interested in cars, especially new energy vehicles like Tesla have too many new technologies. I have been paying attention to them for many years. At that time, I was studying special features in order to study New energy vehicles like Sla will also rent a car for testing and research, so I am also a Tesla consumer, I love Tesla very much, and have no ill will towards Tesla.” After the article was published, it was received by A lot of attention, including many netizens who have launched verbal attacks on him.

“Five-thousand-year-old rabbit” said that when the “black fans” abused him, he said some extreme words to the “black fans” on Toutiao’s “Wei Toutiao”, such as “rogue” and “water army” “…” In retrospect, my words were indeed a bit extreme at the time.”

“The Rabbit of Five Thousand Years” mentioned that during the quarrel between him and netizens, a person claiming to be Tesla’s legal counsel sent a message on Toutiao today, saying that the content he published constituted infringement. After verifying that the identity of the other party was true, he deleted the relevant remarks on the “Wei Toutiao” mentioned by the other party that night.

Tesla sues Toutiao and its users for 500,000 yuan

According to a “Civil Complaint” and related materials provided by “Five Thousand Years of Rabbit”, the cause of the case is a dispute over the right of reputation, and the reporter learned that the plaintiff is Tesla Motors (Beijing) Co., Ltd., and the defendant is Beijing ByteDance Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as ByteDance), “The Rabbit of Five Thousand Years” is the third person in the case.

The grounds for Tesla’s lawsuit include that the company is the main dealer of “Tesla” brand cars in China. Since April 19, 2021, on the Toutiao platform operated by ByteDance, the user “Five Thousand Years Rabbit” has long published infringing content involving Tesla. The user deliberately fabricated and fabricated facts to slander the plaintiff’s business activities; at the same time, he used insulting words to maliciously slander and belittle the plaintiff and the “Tesla” brand cars.

↑List of infringing content attached to Tesla’s complaint

The infringing content combing table attached to the complaint shows that Tesla combed a total of 17 related remarks from today’s headline user “Five Thousand Years of Rabbit” from April 20, 2021 to May 18 of the same year, and believes that the user “If you sell the car, the owner will be blocked, and there is no after-sales service at all” “Tesla in an accident, the dash cam and black box have been emptied remotely” “European Tesla is garbage” “Tesla killed so much Many people” and other remarks, there are situations such as “fabricating false facts” and “insulting Tesla’s products”, which is an insult or slander.

↑In May 2021, Tesla informed the user that the company had filed a lawsuit with the court.

Tesla pointed out in the indictment that the total number of visits to the content published by the user “Five Thousand Years Rabbit” was as high as about 6 million times, which objectively guided a large number of other Toutiao users, consumers and potential consumers to Tesla. Misunderstandings in business activities have caused Tesla’s social evaluation to decrease, and caused great damage to Tesla’s reputation.

Tesla filed a complaint with ByteDance on May 21, 2021, requesting the removal of the infringing content, and Toutiao explicitly refused to deal with it on that day. Since then, the infringing content has continued to spread, and the damage to Tesla has continued to expand.

Tesla believes that Toutiao, as an online service provider, neglected to perform its duties and obligations to manage the infringing content involved and publish accounts, infringed on the plaintiff’s right of reputation, and should bear the corresponding tort liability. Request the court to order ByteDance to stop the infringement, which includes deleting all the infringing content related to the plaintiff posted by the user “Five Thousand Years Rabbit”; The Millennium Rabbit” participated in the lawsuit; paid Tesla 500,000 yuan in damages for infringement and other claims.

Lawyer: Tesla should be supervised to be lenient enough

On April 27, a Red Star News reporter logged in to Toutiao and observed that “The Rabbit of Five Thousand Years” had a total of 19,000 followers on Toutiao and received 189,000 likes. Among the more than ten articles the user has published on Toutiao today, many of them involve Tesla roof rights protection incidents, including “Tesla rights protection girl did not lie! Using brake data to restore the fright five seconds before the accident” “I may have found the cause of Tesla’s brake failure, pure visual autonomous driving has fatal flaws” and other articles involving analysis of car data and design.

“The Rabbit of Five Thousand Years” told the Red Star News reporter that after learning that Tester sued him, the two sides had negotiated, but so far the negotiation has not reached an agreement. On April 24, 2022, he appointed Zhou Zhaocheng, a lawyer who had represented the rights protection case of a female car owner of Xi’an Mercedes-Benz, as his attorney.

Lawyer Zhou Zhaocheng believes that the client, as a loyal fan of the Tesla brand and founder Musk, does not have any fabricated or fictitious facts, and there is no infringement of insult or defamation. Although there were “individual fierce words”, they were quickly deleted afterwards without causing any serious consequences.

Zhou Zhaocheng also mentioned that Tesla is a well-known new energy vehicle brand in the United States. It should be supervised by the public and consumers in China, and there should be sufficient understanding and tolerance for the “criticism and supervision” of the public and consumers. If Tesla insists on the lawsuit, lawyer Zhou Zhaocheng will actively respond to the lawsuit on behalf of the client.

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