Hangzhou: In July 2022, then 23-year-old Zheng Linghua from Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province suffered tremendous online backlash after a photo she posted on popular lifestyle app Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) of her showing her hospitalized grandfather a graduate school admission letter whilst sporting pink-dyed hair went viral. Some netizens appeared to take offense at her colored hair, flooding Zheng’s account with taunts like “pink haired prostitute” or even suggesting the photo with her beloved grandfather was “the image of a May-December couple.”
The cyberbullying led to the young student battling severe depression for six months and eventually taking her own life on January 23. Zheng tried to defend her rights by recording evidence of the abusive comments and trying to pursue legal action. Her lawyer called for an end to the harassment and for the removal of the abusive content. But the platform failed to do anything about the matter. The news of her death was met with outrage on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter equivalent, with many commenters wondering: “Is our legal system really powerless against cyberviolence?”
Of course it’s not. The Civil Code, the Law on Penalties for Administration of Public Security and the Criminal Law all feature corresponding articles to deal with this type of situation.
First is civil liability; the term “liability” means responsibility for the harm alleged by the plaintiff and the damages suffered. Article 1024 of the Civil Code provides that: “A party to civil legal relations enjoys the right to reputation. No organization or individual may infringe upon other’s right to reputation by insultation, defamation, or the like.” So, at the occurrence of any such infringement, the party responsible shall bear civil liability such as financial compensation or the extension of apologies. Next is administrative liability. Article 42 of the Law on Penalties for Administration of Public Security stipulates: “A person who openly humiliates another person or slanders another person by fabricating stories may be detained for a maximum of 10 days.”
–The Daily Mail-Beijing Review news exchange item
