Shanghai lockdown: cyberbullies attack Chinese graduate student for ‘showing off’, call her ‘rubbish’ for sending US$7,690 worth of chocolates to classmates to cheer them up
- The young woman was trying to do a good deed following a call for positive lockdown attitudes from a university counsellor
- But her experience with cyberbullying highlighted just how cruel the internet can be
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A well-intentioned graduate student stuck in Shanghai’s lockdown has unwittingly become a source of online derision after spending 50,000 yuan (US$7,690) of her savings on chocolates that she donated to her classmates stuck in their dormitories.
The counsellor promised to buy and distribute chocolates to the students once the treats became available, which is where Chen saw an opportunity to make a positive impact.
Making the single largest purchase of her life, Chen bought a bulk order from a nearby supermarket that delivered the chocolates to the university. The school then distributed the sweets on April 4 to the students stuck in lockdown.
Chen, who had originally planned to use the money she saved up to buy a camera lens, said she was initially proud after receiving many messages of gratitude for her generosity on Chinese social media platforms.
However, that experience did not last long. When Chen shared her experience on social media, a large portion of the internet ganged up on her and accused her of showing off, seeking attention and wasting her parent’s money.
An avalanche of comments followed, with many being abusive, aggressive and violent. A relatively tame one read: “You seem to be trying to seek the public’s attention, but why do you pretend to be a kindhearted person? Rubbish.”
Chen said the comments made her scared and sad, and, as a result, she avoided the internet for a week.
Pengyuan Luo, a senior partner at SGLA Law Firm in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, told the South China Morning Post that the incident “seriously infringed” on Chen’s rights, despite there being no clear law regulating cyberbullying.
“If Chen wants to seek legal support, not only can she file a lawsuit at the People’s Court requesting compensation, apology or a cease-and-desist order, but she also can launch a criminal prosecution to the court for the crime of defamation,” he said.
A lawyer surnamed Li from a Shanghai-based law firm also pointed to a possible defamation case and said that Chen had legal recourse from a law passed in 2013.
“If a threatening message reaches over 5,000 visits or has been shared more than 500 times, the person who wrote the comment would have committed the crime of defamation. Therefore, victims can seek legal support by collecting hostile evidence on the internet.”
For example, when a 38-year-old man and his family caught Covid-19 in Fujian in September 2021, he begged the online community for mercy after his personal information was leaked and he began to receive abuses that caused “insuppressible terror and mental damage”.
He was one of many people who have found themselves doxxed or abused after they caught the virus.
In a separate incident, a woman in China killed herself after cyberbullies criticised a perceived small gratuity tip she gave to a long-haul driver who had helped send a delivery package to her hearing-impaired father stuck in Shanghai’s lockdown, according to Tencent News.
