Boy, am I glad that I don’t live in Taiwan!
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS
In 2008 a female food-blogger dined at a popular restaurant in Taiwan and order beef noodles. She then wrote on her blog that the noodles were ”too salty” , adding that she had also seen cockroaches scurrying around in the restaurant. (Hey! Isn’t that all part of the fun dining out?) The restaurant owner sued for defamation. The owner won! The blogger was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 2 years probation. To add salt to the wounds (I am so naughty!) she had to also pay approximately $7,000 in fines.
But the kicker is this: the court didn’t argue she was lying about the bugs, but ruled that the blogger ”should not have criticized all the restaurant’s food as too salty because she only had one dish on her single visit.”
The moral here: next time, complain about the cockroaches (they are salty!) and leave it at that!
Blogger jailed over critical restaurant review
By Lin Liang-che / Staff Reporter
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.
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PS
I think that if I was Taiwanese, I wouldn’t risk to criticize the Taiwanese Chess Federation on this blog! I’d soon find myself serving 25-years for telling the truth! But seeing that I am Canadian–and I am proud to be Canadian born– I can openly declare from this blog: FUCK the corrupt CFC Executive….they are ”too salty” !
Isn’t democracy grand?
The CFC Executive busy at promoting chess