Didi Driver Counter-Sues a Viral Accuser as Chinese Courts Side With Good Samaritans

The Weibo hashtag reads, flatly, "the one who accused the child is being counter-sued by the Didi driver" (#诬告小孩者被滴滴司机反告#). Behind it is an influencer from Changsha known online as "Relaxing Bear" (轻松熊), who became notorious after an episode in which she claimed a four-year-old child touched her hip; posts driving the trend say she then hurt the child, and an earlier video of her clashing with a ride-share driver — who she claimed had tricked her — drew more than a quarter of a million likes before the tide turned. This week the driver from that video sent her a lawyer's letter, and her Douyin account, which shows 32,000 followers, now carries a platform notice that it is blocked from being followed.

The driver has gone public in his own defense. In a two-page statement, circulated on Weibo, he writes: "I was not carpooling — the platform listing clearly marked that family and friends were riding along. This person harassed and insulted me. I am waiting for the legal process." A payment notice he then posted, overlaid with his own commentary, shows Didi itself sending him money: "Didi has compensated me and is assisting me with the legal work," the overlay reads. "Thank you to Didi for standing on the side of justice."

The counter-suit lands days after a verdict that gives it a legal backdrop. In Jiangmen, Guangdong, a courier surnamed Li stopped his trike in June last year to help an elderly man who had fallen on a sidewalk, called the emergency services and accompanied him to hospital — and months later found the man's family suing him for more than 920,000 yuan. Their theory required no contact: the airflow, noise and fright of his passing trike, they argued, had knocked the old man down. As Shenzhen News Network reported, the stretch of road was a camera blind spot, traffic police found no scrape marks on the trike, and the old man had repeatedly said at the scene that no one had hit him. The Jiangmen Intermediate People's Court has now had the final word: no evidence of causation, all claims dismissed.

China's Civil Code has shielded voluntary rescuers from liability for injuries since 2021 — the so-called Good Samaritan clause — but a shield against losing is not a shield against being sued, which is why the fear of helping strangers outlived the statute. What is new this week is the direction of the costs. A court has not merely cleared a helper but a platform has bankrolled one's fight, and a serial accuser is facing a lawyer's letter instead of a fresh audience. Whether Chinese defamation law can actually make an accuser pay for a stranger's ruined year is the question the trend leaves open — the letter, for now, is only the first step.