Car Reviewer Cai Jia Apologizes to Tesla Motors, Ordered to Compensate $57,143
TapTechNews July 9th news, according to the electronic version of the Legal Daily official website, on today's (July 9th) comprehensive page, the car reviewer Cai Jia (Boss Cai) released a Statement of Apology to apologize to Tesla Motors.
Tesla had previously sued Cai Jia for infringing on its reputation rights, claiming that Cai Jia had repeatedly released false remarks on the internet that slandered and smeared Tesla, causing a bad impact on the reputation of Tesla's enterprise, products and employees. According to the effective judgment of the court, Cai Jia published a public apology statement in the Legal Daily, and compensated Tesla 400,000 yuan ($57,143).
TapTechNews attaches the full text of the Statement of Apology:
On December 5th, 2022, I, Cai Jia, released the videos Telling the Experience of Netizens and Just So Numb on the Douyin platform.
In the above two videos, as a professional car reviewer, I ignored the kinetic energy recovery function and its principle of electric vehicles, simply attributed the lighting of the brake lights of electric vehicles to the driver stepping on the brake, drew the wrong conclusion of brake failure, causing serious damage to the reputation of Tesla Motors. In addition, I fabricated the conclusion that the staff of Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. gave that the owner stepped on the accelerator pedal 0.2 seconds before the crash, fabricated the remarks that regional executives were strange about the public's indifference, and also used insulting and derogatory words such as having ulterior motives, big change (defecation), lucky, numb, disdainful, unworthy, dirty their eyes, sad, etc., maliciously slandered and damaged the reputation of Tesla Motors.
After the court trial and judgment, I have recognized my own mistakes and have deeply reflected on my actions. The internet is not outside the law, and freedom of speech should be exercised within the legal framework. The release of remarks on the internet should be based on facts, and no one is allowed to casually publish in public places without reasonable verification of the facts.
The above actions have caused infringement on the right of reputation of Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., and I sincerely apologize to your company for the above actions!
In December 2023, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued a notice that the Weibo platform account One Dish Two Dishes, the Douyin platform account Boss Cai, and the WeChat platform account Mei Yan Automobile released and spread false information, maliciously slandered the product quality and reputation of a certain automobile enterprise, and continued to deliberately hyped. For the involved accounts, they have been legally closed.
In addition to Tesla, Cai Jia was also judged to apologize to Li Xiang Automobile in the newspaper in January this year and had to pay 22,150 yuan ($3,165).
