[4] Compiled from: Red Star News
 
Case review
Recently, a strange phenomenon has appeared on the Douyin platform: when a tenant checks out, an employee of a real estate agency enters the vacated room to clean. During the cleaning process, the staff publicly displays items left behind by the tenant and speculates about the tenant's occupation and personal story by analyzing the use of these items. Many netizens believe that the agency's actions have infringed on the tenant's right to personal privacy, and the videos mostly feature female tenants, raising suspicions of exploiting sexual innuendo.

 
 

The real estate agency stated that documenting the mess left by tenants after checkout is a "normal practice," and that the right to use the property reverts to the landlord after the lease ends. They do not believe the video content infringes on the tenant's right to privacy.

 
 

 
Civil Code of the People's Republic of China
Article 1032 
Natural persons have the right to privacy. No organization or individual may infringe upon another's right to privacy by means such as prying, intrusion, disclosure, or publication.
Privacy refers to the peace of private life of a natural person and the private space, private activities, and private information that they do not wish to be known to others.
 
[6] Article 1033 
Unless the rights holder explicitly consents, no organization or individual shall engage in the following acts:
(1) Disturbing the private peace of others through text messages, phone calls, instant messaging tools, emails, flyers, or other means.
(2) Entering, peeping into, or filming others' private spaces such as residences or hotel rooms;
(3) Filming, recording, disclosing, peeping into, or eavesdropping on others' private activities;
(4) Filming or peeping at the private body parts of others;
(5) Collecting or processing others' private information;
(6) Infringing on others' right to privacy in other ways.

 
 

 
[1] The author's perspective
The intermediary company filmed various items left behind by tenants and posted them online, inviting netizens to speculate about the tenants' occupations and personal stories. This behavior has already potentially infringed on the tenants' right to privacy. The videos also used eye-catching terms like "nightclub" and "beauty" as titles, primarily for traffic. Although these terms themselves are not offensive or illegal, the video publisher's subjective intent clearly aimed to evoke certain associations among netizens. Thus, even though the video content contains no explicit descriptions or images, it can be seen as skirting the edges of pornography to some extent.
 
If an intermediary company analyzes tenants' occupations and personal stories in a video, leading netizens to dox the tenant's real identity and subsequently causing widespread online harassment, then both the intermediary and the netizens engaging in harassment will bear tort liability.
 
Therefore, although it is difficult for the platform to penalize such content from the perspective of pornography violations, from the standpoint of potential personality rights infringement and the principle of public order and good customs in civil law, the platform should strengthen supervision over such videos that seek online traffic by pushing boundaries and attracting attention, strictly crack down on online harassment, enhance user management, advocate for a positive online environment, and play a guiding role while regulating.