The School Is Not a Bystander: Three Model Cases on Schools' Duties in Minors' Online Protection

Editor’s Note — DCC.

DCC’s minors-protection coverage has mostly tracked the platform side — most recently the minors’-mode duties under the AI anthropomorphic interaction rules. This JunHe piece (published July 9, 2026) shows the other enforcement surface: courts and procuratorates using model cases, judicial letters, and procuratorial recommendations (检察建议) to make schools an operational node of the Regulations on the Protection of Minors in Cyberspace. Relevant reading for edtech providers, international schools, and anyone whose product or institution touches Chinese students: the duties described here are what regulators expect schools to demand of their vendors and partners.

In many people’s minds, guiding minors to use the internet sensibly is a job for parents and platforms, with no direct connection to schools. The reality is that cyberspace is deeply interwoven with campus life, and the resulting problems force a rethink. When abusive remarks appear in a home–school WeChat group set up in the school’s or a class’s name, does the school have a management duty? When someone spreads a student’s private video and personal information online and incites abusive pile-ons that seriously damage the student’s physical and mental health, what should the school do? When school-related “confession wall” (表白墙) social accounts publish content harmful to students, can the school still stand aside? These practical dilemmas keep interrogating the school’s function and position in minors’ online protection.

Since the 2020 revision of the Law on the Protection of Minors first added a dedicated “Network Protection” chapter, the legislative level has been explicit about both the importance of minors’ online protection and the school’s systematic responsibilities. On March 12 this year, the Fourth Session of the Fourteenth NPC adopted the Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, which expressly calls for “strengthening the online protection of minors.” Around this year’s June 1 Children’s Day, the Beijing Internet Court released its White Paper on Judicial Protection of Minors Online (2021–2026) (May 28, 2026): minors-related online disputes accepted by that court surged from 50 cases in 2021 to 997 in 2025 — a nearly twenty-fold increase. The same day, the Guangzhou Internet Court held a press conference releasing ten model cases on judicial protection of minors online. National and local courts and procuratorates, in other words, are using model cases to steer schools toward an active role. The authors analyze what these cases say about the school’s functions, duties, and liability.

I. Three model cases

Case 1 — Defamation in the parent group; court and school jointly contain the spread

*Guangzhou Internet Court model case (released May 28, 2026): Li v. Huang, online tort liability.*¹

Sixteen-year-old Li had a conflict with classmate Zhao. Zhao’s mother, Huang, posted insulting remarks about Li in the parents’ WeChat group, accusing Li of theft. Li’s school life was severely affected; unable to bear classmates’ gossip, Li was diagnosed with moderate depression and mania. Li sued, seeking an immediate end to the infringement, a public apology, and damages for emotional harm.

The Guangzhou Internet Court held that Huang — without verification by the school, public security, or any other authority — had published insulting and defamatory statements about a minor in the parent group, infringing Li’s right to reputation. It ordered Huang to cease the infringement, apologize, and pay RMB 10,000 in emotional-distress damages and reasonable expenses. The judgment is final.

The court did not stop at the judgment: through written letters it proactively engaged the school, assessed the psychological state and schoolwork of both Li and Zhao, and worked with the school to strictly control the spread of the abusive remarks on campus — minimizing secondary harm and heading off knock-on effects inside the school.

Case 2 — A privacy video spreads; procuratorial recommendations push the school to build systems

*Supreme People’s Procuratorate model case on comprehensive performance of duties in minors’ online protection: the Feng privacy case.*²

From October to November 2020, the minor Zou covertly filmed a private video of classmate Feng and sent it to others. Another student, Xiang, demanded the video from Zou and harassed Feng through a chat app. The video and the attendant commentary spread to Feng’s school, severely affecting Feng’s studies and life.

The Shangcheng District People’s Procuratorate in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, supported Feng and Feng’s guardian in filing a privacy-infringement suit and helped assemble key evidence. The court granted all claims, ordering Zou to cease the infringement, apologize in writing, and pay emotional-distress damages.

Afterwards the procuratorate visited the school repeatedly and issued procuratorial recommendations (检察建议) helping it establish bullying-prevention-and-control systems. The school disciplined the students who had committed bullying and privacy infringement under its rules, and used spread-control and privacy-protection measures to minimize the incident’s impact on Feng.

Case 3 — Unauthorized school-named “confession wall” accounts; CAC office ordered to clean up

*Zhejiang Provincial People’s Procuratorate model case: supervising the regulation of campus “confession wall” accounts.*³

In March 2023, the Longquan City People’s Procuratorate discovered in a criminal case that the suspect Ji had used information posted on a WeChat “confession wall” account named after a local middle school to add multiple enrolled students as friends, arranged offline meetings, and sexually assaulted one girl. Investigation revealed that all seven urban middle schools had unauthorized school-named “confession wall” accounts, publishing dating-related personal information as well as harmful content — abuse of others, e-cigarette and tattoo advertising.

In May 2023 the procuratorate issued a pre-litigation procuratorial recommendation to the Longquan cyberspace affairs office proposing a special clean-up. The office conducted regulatory interviews (约谈) with the operators of the seven school-named accounts and imposed discipline, cancelled the accounts, had each school’s Youth League committee open official accounts for student exchange instead, and established account-management rules governing content publication and day-to-day operation.

II. The school’s three functions in minors’ online protection

Reading the Law on the Protection of Minors, the Regulations on the Protection of Minors in Cyberspace, and the Provisions on the Protection of Minors by Schools together, the school’s functions fall into three core dimensions.

1. Internet-literacy education

The school is the main front for minors’ internet-literacy education, bearing first-line responsibility for cultivating students’ ability to use the internet scientifically, civilly, safely, and reasonably. Article 64 of the Law on the Protection of Minors requires the state, society, schools, and families to strengthen internet-literacy education. Article 16 of the Regulations details the school’s part: literacy content goes into teaching activities; the internet is used reasonably in instruction; students are helped to form good online habits, build awareness of network security and network rule of law, and strengthen their ability to obtain and critically judge online information. In Case 3, for instance, the school had a duty to guide school-related channels to speak reasonably and compliantly, to forbid unauthorized individuals from publishing harmful content in the school’s name, and to guide students toward sound online habits.

Note also Article 70 of the Law: schools shall use the internet reasonably in teaching, and minor students may not bring smartphones or other smart terminals into class without school permission — devices brought to school are subject to unified management. That statutory device-management duty is itself an expression of the law’s expectation that schools cultivate healthy internet habits.

2. Preventing and handling cyberbullying

The internet is a hotbed of rumor, and online rumors spreading across online and offline layers can easily injure minors whose minds are still maturing. Article 21 of the School Protection Provisions imposes a prompt-intervention duty: teachers and staff who discover a student “fabricating facts to defame others, spreading rumors or false information to disparage others, or maliciously disseminating others’ privacy through networks or other information-dissemination means” must stop it promptly. For false and insulting information targeting a minor, as in Case 1, the school must take effective measures to stop further spread — containing the rumor while shielding the minor from psychological harm.

Article 39 of the Law goes further: schools must establish a student-bullying prevention-and-control system, train staff and students, immediately stop bullying, involve the parents or guardians of both the bullying and bullied students in determining and handling the incident — and must not conceal serious bullying, which must be reported promptly to public security and education authorities. The procuratorial recommendations in Case 2, pushing the school to build exactly such systems, are that duty made visible.

3. Preventing and addressing internet addiction

The internet is meaningfully addictive for minors, and the school — the actor best placed to notice attention problems caused by addiction — carries statutory reminder-and-education duties. Article 71 of the Law: a school that discovers a minor student addicted to the internet shall promptly inform the parents or other guardians and jointly educate and guide the student back to normal study and life. To catch problems early, Article 40 of the Regulations requires schools to strengthen teacher guidance and training, improving teachers’ capacity for early identification of and intervention in student internet addiction.

III. Liability, and four recommendations

What if a school fails these duties? Under Article 51 of the Regulations, a school that does not perform its minors’ online-protection duties is ordered to correct by the education authorities; where it refuses or the circumstances are serious, responsible leaders and directly responsible personnel face sanctions. Beyond administrative liability, Article 1201 of the Civil Code provides that where a student suffers personal injury at school from a third party (such as another student), the third party bears tort liability — and the school bears corresponding supplementary liability if it failed its management duties. Cyberbullying and online reputation cases arising during the school day can therefore end in civil liability for the school too.

The authors’ recommendations:

1. Strengthen internet education and network-security legal education — and document it. Fold internet literacy into daily teaching; put literacy courses on the curriculum list; offer courses on network security and on distinguishing AI-generated content; run themed activities; and give staff dedicated training on internet addiction so problems surface early. Keep records of all of it.

2. Deepen the “rule-of-law vice principal” (法治副校长) mechanism. Use it to link up with local courts’ juvenile tribunals, procuratorates’ juvenile divisions, and law firms — mock courts on campus, lawyers and judges in classrooms. Schools can borrow from the Guangzhou Internet Court’s Five-Year Plan for Judicial Protection of Minors Online (2026–2030): staff the vice principal with psychological counselors, network-technology specialists, and home–school liaison officers to form a complementary professional team embedded in the school’s protection mechanism.

3. Build a bullying prevention-and-control system covering the full discover–stop–report–handle chain. When an online-infringement or cyberbullying dispute involving minors erupts, take effective measures to stop escalation and secondary harm, keep a full paper trail throughout, and bring in professional lawyers promptly.

4. Strengthen minors’ network-compliance work generally. The Law, the Regulations, and the School Protection Provisions all set supervisory requirements on internet-access facilities, installation of protective software, anti-addiction mechanisms, and management of smartphones and other smart terminals. Schools should implement central and local requirements in full — or expect correction orders and other administrative measures.

Per the Sixth National Survey on Minors’ Internet Use (released by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League at the Wuzhen Summit’s minors’ online protection forum, November 21, 2024), China has 196 million minor netizens and an internet-penetration rate among minors of 97.3%. Minors are digital natives in the literal sense. The internet is embedded in every layer of their study, social life, and entertainment — bringing broad opportunity, but also, with fast-iterating AI, new species of harmful information, personal information leakage, cyberbullying, and privacy infringement that weigh on minds still maturing. The school, as a core arena of minors’ growth, should be the “main battlefield” of their online protection — with institutionalized systems as the foundation and full-process compliance in incident response.

Notes

1. Guangzhou Internet Court, “Model Cases on Judicial Protection of Minors Online (II),” June 2, 2026: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_YRiCiMNkpHHCrJgMt8H-w
2. Supreme People’s Procuratorate, “Model Cases on Procuratorial Organs’ Comprehensive Performance of Duties in Strengthening Minors’ Online Protection,” May 31, 2023: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Z1K_8o-purkNvm425guy2Q
3. Zhejiang Procuratorate, “Model Cases on Judicial Protection of Minors by Zhejiang Procuratorial Organs,” May 29, 2024: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/N-kH1mJlMbRIHTF9wPM9uQ

Source: 余苏 (Yu Su, partner), 张美怡 (Zhang Meiyi), and 潘扬璋 (Pan Yangzhang), “未成年人网络保护进行时——从典型案例看学校的网络保护职能,” published July 9, 2026 on the JunHe Legal Review (君合法律评论) WeChat Official Account, original article. Yu Su’s practice covers education, life sciences and health, compliance, and dispute resolution. Per the source’s own disclaimer, the article represents the authors’ personal views and is not a formal legal opinion of JunHe.

— Not legal advice.