On Thursday local time, Diet_Prada, an account on social network Instagram based in Milan, published a poster, saying they filed a defense of their freedom of speech in a lawsuit brought by Italian brand Dolce & Gabbana.

In their explanatory texts below, one could learn that D&G sued them to court in early 2019, requiring them to be "held responsible for" lost revenue and other harm done to the brand and its co-founder, Stefano Gabbana.

Hope people still remember what happened before that. On Nov 21, 2018, D&G was going to hold its "The Great Show" in Shanghai. However, in their publicity video clip about it, there was an Asian female trying to eat pizza and spaghetti with chopsticks. However, the video had so sulky voiceover and the female used chopsticks in a so unnatural way that any Chinese seeing it would feel offended.

Worse, a later Instagram chat snapshot showed Gabbana badmouthed against China and even used poop emoji to describe Chinese. He later denied his own words and said his account was "hacked", without showing any evidence about that.

Then one Chinese model after another canceled their plan to attend the D&G show, which had to be canceled. The two co-founders of D&G apologized via a video clip.

Everybody thought that was the end of it, until this Friday. According to Diet_Prada, D&G filed an action for defamation in early 2019, asking for 3 million euros ($3,588,000) to the brand and 1 million euros to Gabbana.

If what Diet_Prada said is true, then the case has already entered its judicial procedure, the decision which will be made by the court. Upon the case itself we do not comment.

However, there is one point that should be made clear, namely that if a company has racist deeds or words, then it deserves losses for that.

Racism, which defines a person totally by their birth and denies his or her personal struggles, is a common enemy to any civilized society and should not be tolerated in any modern country. That's why, in case a company is found to have used racist words or deeds, it will almost surely be boycotted and lose consumers.

Almost every year, there are brands that get into this trouble out of carelessness or intended moves. They have all paid a heavy price for that misdeed, and the price they pay is a good reminder never to repeat that folly again, as well as to help root out racism from people's minds.

D&G must have suffered from cancellation of its planned show in Shanghai in 2018, but it is fortunate that's not the worst. Its sales in China dropped, but at least it is still in the market.

It's hoped it learned a lesson from that loss, so as to avoid suffering more.