#7 - Exploiting a news story

 Often times greedy or narcistic individuals will jump at the opportunity to claim some measure of self benefit through the exploitation of any means these individuals or groups have access to. News stories are no different, and if the circumstances behind the news story align favorably with particular groups ability to take advantage of the story, then that organization will likely seek to use the new story in twisted ways to advance their own agendas.

Recently, a devastating event has taken place in China where a young woman named Zheng Linghua was relentlessly cyberbullied online to such an extent that it prompted her to take her own life. Zheng Linghua was 24 when she passed away after the brutally harsh words from strangers on the internet took their toll on Zheng Linghua after dying her hair pink and claiming she desired to become a piano teacher as she grew up. She went on to post a picture of her tending to her elderly grandfather when he was in the hospital while in the picture her pink hair is fully on display and was quickly met with internet backlash.

This moment Zheng Linghua shared with her grandfather, demonstrated how important he was to her as he had raised her from the age of six months old when her mother passed away.

Unfortunately after thousands of unwarranted, allegedly derogatory messages were sent to her she took her own life at the age of 24. These messages described particularly gruesome insults that insinuated that Zheng Linghua was a prostitute due to her pink hair, that she should never be hired as a piano teacher, and that she was probably having a sexual relationship with her so called grandfather due to the supposedly "seductive" nature she had when smiling at her ailing family member.

The Chinese Communist Party allegedly took this chance to appear as if they were concerned to no end over cyber bullying while stating the additional censorship and government control that must be enacted over social media and the internet.

Upon looking into the social media platform "Weibo" that Zheng Linghua utilized, searching her name in English as well as in Chinese yielded no relevant results. This may indicate that her name and profile were potentially scrubbed from the social media platform.

Although it is valiant and worthwhile to oppose cyberbullying as the Chinese Communist Party claims is its desire, a past trend of enacting severe restrictions and surveillance seems to indicate that the CCP may just be engaging in faux benevolent posturing.

With the degree of control that the CCP desires over its denizens, it is believable that their alleged ulterior motives may very well exist behind the "good intentions" they are so quick to express for the public eye.

Bitter Winter.org describes the tragic case of Zheng Linghua in more detail.