BIC on governance of internet social media platforms
The Beijing Internet Court (BIC) held a media briefing on trials involving internet social media platforms on June 1. BIC president Zhang Wen attended the event and gave a briefing, which was followed by detailed case studies by six judges.
Between September 9, 2018 and May 31, 2021, the BIC heard a total of 102,585 cases, including 23,781 involving social media platforms, accounting for 23.18 percent of the total. The case numbers are increasing on a yearly basis, with 458 cases between September and December in 2018, 8011 cases in 2019 and 10,424 cases in 2020, an increase of 30.12 percent year on year.
Copyright disputes were most common social media platform disputes, accounting for 87.71 percent of the total. Cases involving online tort came second by accounting for 6.81 percent. The top 10 social media platforms by the number of disputes combined contributed 20,402 cases or 85.79 percent of the total, by May 31, 2021.
Main features and challenges of internet social media-related cases were presented at the briefing, as were the BIC’s key measures to meet those challenges.