Right then, gather round while I explain something obvious that the rest of the planet apparently had to learn the hard way: when a company gets big enough to swallow whole continents of market share, it also develops the legal appetite of a shark that’s learnt to file paperwork. The latest, rather theatrical example is BYD, China’s EV colossus, which has begun hauling influencers, bloggers and anyone with a loud phone into court as if they were contestants on a very expensive game show. It sued 37 social-media accounts this summer and has reportedly got another 126 on a watch list, with a “tip line” that even offers rewards for leads. Yes, really, reward money to snitch on people who criticise you online. The circus is open for business as reported by Car News China.
Let’s not be naive about what’s happening here. This isn’t regular customer litigation but lawfare in broad daylight. There’s a long, useful phrase for it: SLAPP, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, and it is the perfect description for corporations weaponising defamation law not merely to correct falsehoods, but to frighten anyone who might even think about saying something inconvenient. The effect is deliciously simple: quieten the critics, make the watchers think twice, and let the marketing departments go back to their usual business of polishing press releases until they gleam. It’s cheap intimidation with very expensive subpoenas.
You may remember a similar spectacle when BYD sued an auto blogger for big-money defamation a couple of years back. That, too, wasn’t about truth so much as deterrence: take public criticism and the consequence is a legal paperweight dropped on your desk. Tesla has trod the same path in China, suing customers and journalists and winning many of those suits, which gives the whole industry a blueprint for “how to shut the room up without actually making the facts go away.” In short: the problem isn’t the odd lawsuit, it’s the system that makes lawsuits an effective gag.
Why does this matter beyond the delicious schadenfreude of watching influencers panic? Because this style of repression corrodes the one thing consumers actually rely on: reliable, factual, independent information. When vloggers who test cars for a living start to worry that a single negative clip will cost them their house, the only logical editorial strategy becomes safe silence or enthusiastic praise. That’s bad for buyers, bad for journalists, and abominably bad for the public, especially when the product in question is a two-ton battery-powered transport device that, let’s be honest, will make you a very grumpy person quickly if it has steering or battery problems. No one should need a law degree to be able to tell the truth about a car that might kill them. But how does a lowly and/or broke blogger fight a mega-company with deep pockets through the courts of law, to put it simple you cannot.
Let’s be blunt: corporations suing critics is nothing new. But the scale and institutionalisation of the behaviour in China, legal departments with names like “News Anti-Fraud” and reward schemes for tip-offs, feels different. It’s organised, relentless and designed to create a chilling climate where criticism becomes a hazard akin to walking barefoot across a Lego minefield. That’s exactly what a SLAPP is engineered to do, not necessarily to win every case, but to make the cost of speaking up intolerable. And while western jurisdictions have started to fight back with anti-SLAPP laws and judicial pushback, those protections are uneven at best.
So what should a sensible person do when an automaker stands up its legal army and points it at the internet? First, stop pretending that every “lawsuit” is about truth. Legal action is increasingly a tool of reputation management, not just remediation. Second, support good, well-funded journalism and watchdogs who can survive legal storms. Third, regulators and platforms need to stop outsourcing truth policing to lawyers and start building transparent, evidence-based systems that protect whistleblowers and critics. In the meantime, buyers should treat every glowing model review with the same skepticism they’d use when reading a press release that was printed on gold leaf.
Finally, to those manufacturers and their in-house counsel I say this in plain English): if you want lasting brand respect, build trustworthy products and accept honest criticism. If you’d rather buy silence with lawsuits and rewards, you’ll get the quiet you paid for and the distrust you deserve. The market has a long memory, and litigation is a poor substitute for good engineering. Now go and read your terms and conditions; possibly with a lawyer, possibly with a stiff drink.
