Automakers Sue Online Trolls En Masse: Over 30 Cases in Three Years, Awards Exceed ¥25 Million

Recently, numerous automakers have increasingly resorted to legal action to combat online rumors, significantly increasing the workload of their legal departments. On May 19, Shangjie Auto announced that two operators of rumor-spreading social media accounts had received administrative penalties. In another case, BYD’s lawsuit against the self-media account “Long Ge Talks EVs” concluded with the appellate court upholding the original ruling, ordering the defendant to pay RMB 2 million in compensation. Over the past three years, automakers have filed more than 30 lawsuits against self-media outlets, with total awarded damages exceeding RMB 25 million. Meanwhile, negative online content targeting automakers continues to rise and has evolved into a replicable, scalable, and monetizable gray-market industry chain. The automotive sector is characterized by high customer acquisition costs, long purchase decision cycles, and strong reliance on information—making consumers highly sensitive to negative reports. New energy vehicles (NEVs), with their technical complexity, are particularly difficult for average users to independently verify. Intense industry competition means that even minor differences in public perception can translate into significant shifts in market share, creating commercial incentives to fabricate and disseminate negative content. Technologically, AI tools have drastically lowered the barrier to content creation, enabling individuals to mass-produce defamatory automotive articles using software—replacing the previous model that required coordinated teams. In terms of distribution, organized groups leverage dozens of MCN agencies and thousands of personal accounts to widely disseminate such content, creating an illusion of “universal negative reviews” across the internet. Financially, these malicious actors share ad revenue with platforms and simultaneously monetize through advertising and e-commerce promotions by cultivating personas like “truth-tellers,” thereby achieving multiple streams of income.