Posted on 06/23/2011 11:42:25 AM PDT by LibWhacker
OBJECTIVITY:The judge said the blogger should not have criticized the restaurant’s food as ‘too salty’ in general, because she had eaten dried noodles and two side dishes
The Taichung branch of Taiwan High Court on Tuesday sentenced a blogger who wrote that a restaurant’s beef noodles were too salty to 30 days in detention and two years of probation and ordered her to pay NT$200,000 in compensation to the restaurant.
The blogger, surnamed Liu (劉), writes about a variety of topics — including food, health, interior design and lifestyle topics — and has received more than 60,000 hits on her Web site.
After visiting a Taichung beef noodle restaurant in July 2008, where she had dried noodles and side dishes, Liu wrote that the restaurant served food that was too salty, the place was unsanitary because there were cockroaches and that the owner was a “bully” because he let customers park their cars haphazardly, leading to traffic jams.
The restaurant’s owner, surnamed Yang (楊), learned about Liu’s blog post from a regular customer, and filed charges against her, accusing her of defamation.
The Taichung District Court ruled that Liu’s criticism of the restaurant exceeded reasonable bounds and sentenced her to 30 days in detention, a ruling that Liu appealed.
The High Court found that Liu’s criticism about cockroaches in the restaurant to be a narration of facts, not intentional slander.
However, the judge also ruled that Liu should not have criticized all the restaurant’s food as too salty because she only had one dish on her single visit.
Health officials who inspected the restaurant did not find conditions to be as unsanitary as Liu had described, so the High Court also ruled that Liu must pay NT$200,000 to the owner for revenues lost as a result of her blog post.
The ruling is final.
Liu has apologized to the restaurant for the incident.
Yang said he filed the charges because Liu’s negative comments about his restaurant led many customers to call him to ask if her review was true.
He said he hoped the case would teach her a lesson.
Huang Cheng-lee (黃呈利), a lawyer in Taichung, said that bloggers who post food reviews should remember to be truthful in their commentary and supplement their comments with photographs to protect themselves.
He also said bloggers should be objective and fair in their writing.
Civility.
LOL! "Yes, we have a cockroach problem, but posting our food is too salty - YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT!"
Jeeze. This sounds like the OTHER China. :/
Geez. I hope this doesn’t happen in this country. Have you ever seen reviews on sites such as Yelp??? Are we going to say that someone is legally liable for their opinion that they got bad service at some business????
Instead, the Court finds that here sample size was too small to justify her findings.. =/
The time is NOW to protect your 1st Amendment rights by exercising those protected under the 2nd Amendment.
At last! Somebody taking a realistic approach to dealing with irresponsible blogging!
I always take reviews from such sites with a grain of salt.
I’ve been trying for a bit to find this bloggers website - give a hit or two for revenue....not finding it....
How you like THEM apples, blogger??!!
(Obscure Houston talk radio reference)
Here in the US, she would have just called 911 to report the salty noodles.
You would support a blogger over a business owner?
And because he sues his customers who complain about the food.
I have no idea whether some, or none or all of what this blogger said is ‘true’, but he obviously ‘thought’ or ‘felt’ it was true. This blogger was obviously surprised that a ‘Federal Case’ was made out of what he probably thought was an attempt to provide a Consumer’s Guide to eating out. Looks like the authorities are sending a message to OTHER bloggers though, saying that “Look what we can do to a piddling little restaurant review! You’d better be careful!”, the implication being a big chill is being put on internet expression. If the restaurant owner’s business got adversely affected,you can see why he justifiably or not, complained. It would make better sense for an Indie Blogger only to do reviews of restaurants THEY LIKE. Which they probably will, in Taipei, from now on.
If the government/corporate complex gets its way.
We exist to create a market for their products. If we don't like their products, we must not be allowed to harm their business.
Well, I guess sending a dish back to the kitchen in that restaurant is just out.
And if a bunch of bloggers in your town get mad at you and
write about how you are a syphilitic pedophile who eats puppies?
You support that?
True or not, it's free speech for bloggers, right?
Unsupervised, irresponsible, free-wheeling, no training-or-investment bloggers.
Let's not hold any of the "New Media" accountable.
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