Candidates for the 2022 national postgraduate entrance examinations leave a testing site in Yuncheng, North China's Shanxi Province on December 26, 2021. Data showed that 4.57 million people applied for the exam, 800,000 more than last year. Photo: VCG

Recently, two netizens who posted negative comments about a postgraduate entrance examination institution on Zhihu, the Chinese version of Quora, were sued by the institution. They were found guilty of infringing reputation and ordered to pay the institution 3272 yuan (514 dollars) in compensation.

One of the defendants, surnamed Zhang, is a postgraduate student at a university in Beijing. He described his previous experience of buying courses from the institution as that "the quality of their courses is quite mediocre and this 'predatory' institution is always quarreling with others. Once people use their real names, they will suffer online 'verbal abuse' from this institution."

The words ''predatory'' and ''verbal abuse'' in Zhang's comments were deemed by the court to be insulting or defamatory to the institution.

At the same time, Zhang shared evidence of other students' concerns about the institution and the subsequent public humiliation they received from the institution.  Many netizens expressed sympathy for Zhang and said such training institutions should be banned.