DISCUSSION ON JUDICIAL APPLICATION OF CRIME OF ILLEGAL USE INFORMATION

Abstract

The advent of the Internet era has brought new challenges to society, with traditional criminal law proving insufficient in effectively regulating information - related crimes in social networks. To address this, China's judicial system has introduced crimes like illegal use of information networks to govern network - based offences. However, when the crime of illegal use of information networks was initially established, it faced issues such as unclear criminal definitions and overly broad behavioral scopes. In this context, this paper systematically analyzes the flaws and negative implications of the crime of illegal use of information networks. Subsequently, the "Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law to Criminal Cases such as Illegal Use of Information Networks and Assistance in Information Network Crimes" (hereinafter referred to as the "Interpretation") proposed the "compromise theory" to enhance the regulation of this crime. While the author acknowledges the appropriateness of applying the "compromise theory" in the "Interpretation", it is argued that the determination of "serious circumstances" regarding the establishment of communication groups for criminal purposes in the "Interpretation" lacks rigor. The author contends that using the number of members in a communication group to assess the seriousness of circumstances is more appropriate than relying on the number of such communication groups established.