Original source: Tron

Rumors such as “being investigated by the FBI” have always been a major shadow in the public image of Justin Sun, HTX’s global consultant and founder of Wave Field TRON. As a result, the parties involved and their related industries paid a huge public opinion price. However, the truth cannot be fake, the truth cannot be fake. Now, with the support of the People’s Court, Justin Sun has completely shed the shadow of these rumors.

Recently, Beijing Sina Internet Information Service Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as Sina.com) officially issued a public apology statement, admitting that its false reports about Justin Sun, founder of Bochang TRON, constituted an infringement of Justin Sun’s reputation. This statement of apology means that Sina.com has accepted the previous first-instance judgment of the Beijing City Internet Court in the case of Justin Sun v. Sina.com for infringement of reputation, marking the end of the six-year lawsuit with Justin Sun winning. This is also the second time in nearly a year that Justin Sun has won a case of infringement of personal reputation rights. It is worth noting that the two cases mentioned above revolve around false media reports related to them.

The rule of law is the rule: Authoritative media also need to respect facts

According to the civil judgment of the Beijing Internet Court on the case, from 2019 to 2022, Sina.com published a video titled “Video” on its financial channel.| Justin Sun: The most slutty post-90s generation in history is playing around with the post-90s old man!”, The article “The FBI and IRS have launched an investigation into Justin Sun’s suspected insider trading” and a similar series of articles, as well as related topics. The article, especially the title, has obvious negative comments, which makes it easy for the public to lower their social evaluation of Justin Sun himself. At the same time, the report also claims that Justin Sun is suspected of improper trading behavior and other false information. This series of reports has not been fully verified and is exaggerated with extremely serious accusations, which has aroused widespread social attention and public opinion discussions.

The verdict also pointed out that some reports quoted articles from foreign media The Verge, and many of the allegations in the article were not confirmed. The Verge report cited unnamed sources and mentioned multiple inaccuracies, but failed to provide official evidence or confirmation. These contents were further reproduced and disseminated by Sina.com without factual basis, causing serious damage to Justin Sun’s reputation.

Faced with false reports, Justin Sun immediately publicly refuted them through social media, making it clear that the reports were false information and had hired a lawyer to hold the publisher’s legal responsibility. However, Sina.com continued to spread the false information without proper verification, further damaging Justin Sun’s reputation. In this regard, Justin Sun decided to defend his legitimate rights and interests through legal means.

After six years of legal litigation, the Beijing Internet Court finally ruled that Sina had failed to fulfill its review obligations and the content it published was seriously inaccurate, which constituted an infringement of Justin Sun’s reputation rights. The court asked Sina.com to delete the relevant report and publicly apologize to Justin Sun in a nationally distributed newspaper and its official website, as well as compensate him.

This judgment strongly proves that in a society governed by law, judicial justice will not be biased because the defendant is an authoritative media. The court’s strict review of evidence and precise grasp of the boundary between freedom of speech and reputation rights demonstrate the judicial principle of “taking facts as the basis and taking the law as the criterion.”

The success of this case is not only a successful protection of Justin Sun’s personal reputation rights, but also provides valuable experience for public figures on how to protect their rights and interests through legal channels when encountering false reports. Experts said that when reporting on public figures and incidents, the media must strictly verify the source of information and avoid one-sided dissemination of unconfirmed content, so as not to accidentally injure innocent people and bear corresponding legal responsibilities.

It is worth noting that in June 2024, Justin Sun also won another lawsuit. In this reputation dispute involving Chongqing Business Media Group, the People’s Court of Yubei District of Chongqing City found that the media published inaccurate content about Justin Sun, causing damage to his reputation, and asked Chongqing Business Media Group to publicly apologize and compensate for relevant expenses. The court emphasized that the media should perform necessary verification obligations when reporting on public figures to ensure the authenticity of the content.

Breaking stereotypes: Justin Sun’s “Winning the Case”

For a long time, Justin Sun has been labeled as “cutting leeks” and “hype” due to some behaviors and views with different interpretations in the cryptocurrency field. In this judgment, the court found that some Sina articles used expressions such as “fraud”,”money laundering” and “FBI investigation” without sufficient factual basis, and did not balance the reporting of Justin Sun’s public rectifications, which ultimately constituted reputation infringement.

For Justin Sun, this victory was not only a legal victory, but also an important turning point for public image. The judgment mentioned that Justin Sun actively provided evidence in the lawsuit, clarified many times through social media, entrusted lawyers to defend their rights, and finally cleared the false allegations through legal channels. The court’s support allowed him to “take pride” from long-term negative public opinion, and also set an example for practitioners in the blockchain industry to safeguard their rights in accordance with the law.

The judgment in this case reveals the shortcomings of “labeling cognition” in the public opinion field. In the past, Justin Sun was often portrayed by the media as a “currency speculator”, but the court found that some of the allegations were unsubstantiated and even contained fabrication and distortion. For example, the verdict pointed out that the so-called “FBI investigation” and other content actually cited unverified information and was seriously out of balance with Justin Sun’s public response.

This result reminds the public that in an era of mixed information, evaluation of any individual should be based on facts rather than rumors. Justin Sun said after the verdict that he would “continue to focus on blockchain technology compliance” and that his efforts to promote industry-regulatory dialogue in recent years may merit more objective review.

The victory of the Justin Sun case is a protection of individual rights by the rule of law and a warning of media responsibility. It proves that both public figures and ordinary citizens are equally protected by the law. At the same time, this case also provides an opportunity for society to reflect-only by abandoning preconceived prejudices, basing facts and law on boundaries, can a more rational and fair public opinion environment be built.

Justin Sun’s “Counterattack” and “Breakout” may have just begun, but the next episode will be even more exciting.

This article is from a submission and does not represent the views of BlockBeats