cyberviolence Photo:IC

China's cyberspace authorities released a draft regulation governing cyber violence on Friday, which proposes to initiate "one-click protection" to protect victims against cyber violence risks.

The "one-click protection" function allows victims who suffer from cyber violence to close strangers' private messages and comments with one click, according to the draft, which is titled "Cyber Violence Information Governance Provisions" and was released by Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC).

When users face the risk of cyber violence, online information service providers are required to remind the users to activate the "one-click protection" function in a timely manner. 

If minors, the elderly were involved in the cyber violence, or users who expresses in the public that they have suffered from cyber violence, online information service providers should provide such a function. 

The draft composes of 31 provisions in seven articles, including the governance methods on monitoring and early warning, protections mechanism, supervision and legal responsibility of cyber violence cases. The CAC released it on Friday for the solicitation of public opinions.

The draft regulation will serve as a comprehensive management over the healthy ecology of cyberspace governance, and it will play a positive role in curbing cyber violence, Zhu Wei, vice director of the Communication Law Research Center at the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times on Friday.

The draft also determines the Cybersecurity Law and the Personal Information Protection Law can be applied in face of cyber violence, Zhu said. However, the legislative provisions related to cyber violence are also scattered over various levels of legislation and they lack pertinence and coordination, the expert said, calling for the prompt release of a law on cyber violence. 

The draft defines cyber violence as illegal and bad information published through the internet, which insults and invades, fabricates slander, infringes privacy, and seriously affects the victims' physical and mental health, including moral kidnapping, demeaning and discrimination and malicious speculation.

One of the highlights of the draft is that it proposes to establish a working mechanism involving the cyberspace administration and other relevant departments for information sharing, consultation and notification, evidence collection and investigation, and case supervision.

The draft regulations highlight the role of online information service providers in battle with cyber violence. Its responsibility is emphasized, from account registration, content review, violent information detection and offering assistant to cyber violence victims. 

Zhu said what worth mentioning is that the service providers are asked to establish and improve the classification standard of online violence information and sample database of typical case. The database is beneficial to clearly refine the standard of online violence information to enhance the accuracy of distinguishing such cases, the expert said.

The information service providers should provide users with one-click forensics against online violence information to improve the convenience of evidence collection. If cyber violence involves minors, information service providers shall give priority to dealing with these reports, the draft said.

Where an internet information service provider finds abusive online information, such as insulting, slandering, and infringing on privacy, it shall take measures to delete and screen, disconnect links, and restrict transmission of information. 

The service providers are responsible in reviewing online content that are subject to spread cyber violence, including comments in written form, and live broadcast and short video content. 

For the online organizations that organize and incite the release of online violence information, the online information service providers shall, in accordance with the law and regulations, take relevant measures, including warning, suspension of commercial income, restriction of service provision or withdrawal of their accounts.

When an online user violates these provisions, the online information service providers should warn, remind, restrict their account, or close their accounts as responding measures. 

Adopting blacklist measures should be considered when individual users engage in organizing or inciting online violence, according to the draft regulation.

Online information service providers are also required to strengthen the management of user account information so as to prevent cyber violence suspects from registering or releasing information in violation of regulations in a malicious manner, as well as to assist cyber violence victims to authenticate accounts if needed.

The draft encourages online information service providers to establish and improve the early warning model of network violence information so as to timely discover the early warning risk of network violence, and regularly publish online violence information governance reports, and release annual reports on the managing of network information content.