The Zheng Linghua Case (2022-2023)
One of the most widely reported cases involves Zheng Linghua, a 23-year-old graduate from Hangzhou. In July 2022, she posted a photo on Xiaohongshu showing her hospitalized grandfather her graduate school admission letter while sporting pink-dyed hair. The post went viral, but she faced severe online backlash as netizens flooded her account with taunts including “pink-haired prostitute” and made inappropriate comments suggesting the photo depicted a “May-December couple”.
Zheng attempted to defend her rights by recording evidence of the abusive comments and pursuing legal action, but her lawyer reported that the platform failed to take action to remove the abusive content. The cyberbullying led her to battle severe depression for six months, and she ultimately took her own life on January 23, 2023.
The “Bride Price” Photo Theft Case (2023-2024)
In September 2023, a woman identified as Xiaoting shared a graduation photo of herself and five former college roommates on Xiaohongshu. Within weeks, a Douyin creator known as “Business Tycoon” stole the photo, added a digital price tag, and broadcast it to 330,000 followers with the provocative caption: “The bride price is 100,000 yuan. Which one would you choose as a girlfriend?”
The women experienced significant emotional distress, with one being teased at work and others receiving half-joking messages about the bride price. Their reports to the platform initially received template responses saying the platform “couldn’t confirm infringement,” and police reportedly told them the posts had not caused “substantial harm”.
After a yearlong legal fight, in September 2024, the Guangzhou Internet Court ordered the creator to pay damages and issue a public apology for using the stolen photo to fabricate a viral rumor.
Platform Response and User Concerns
Research on Xiaohongshu has highlighted several issues regarding how the platform handles harassment:
- Ineffective reporting mechanisms: Users have expressed frustration with failed reporting attempts, noting that “reporting on Xiaohongshu is very unsuccessful”. Even after reports are filed, abusive content often remains visible.
- Ineffective blocking features: Users report that blocking does not fully prevent recommended content from blocked users appearing on their explore pages. Some female users have taken to blocking users preemptively when they “came across users who spoke unfriendly or when they identified users whose gender was clearly male… to prevent harassment and conflicts”.
- Hashtag re-appropriation: Due to frustration with platform moderation, some women began re-appropriating hashtags like #BSF (originally standing for “Baby Supplemental Food”) as a way to signal to the algorithm to block male users from seeing their content, creating a women-only space to avoid harassment.
- also check this topic：
- https://ifx0.com/index.php/2026/08/18/movement-against-cyberbullying-how-they-try-to-ruin-psychology/
