How easy is it to destroy a woman’s life? Just spread a rumor.
When false accusations explode across the internet and weak denials fade into silence, the invisible violence that follows leaves women bearing psychological scars far worse than physical ones. The mental trauma they suffer is nearly impossible to heal, and their trust in the world crumbles. After this spiritual slaughter, how can their lives ever continue?
The Hate That Even Death Couldn’t Stop
In May 2022, Lily Zhang was about to graduate from the Music Department at Zhejiang Normal University in China. Before summer arrived, she dyed her hair pink.
Her hairstylist later recalled that Lily chose pink because she wanted to stand out in her graduation photos. “Pink really matched her personality—feminine but also bright and sunny.”
![Image of young woman with pink hair]
Lily was a star student who had just been accepted into a prestigious graduate program at East China Normal University. On July 13, 2022, the moment she received her acceptance letter, she rushed to the hospital to share the good news with her grandfather.
Lily once said: “Even though I grew up in a single-parent home, my grandfather taught me what love means. When I started studying music in high school, he was the one who supported me.”
During her hospital visit, she took a photo to remember the moment. In the picture, she’s leaning over her grandfather’s hospital bed, holding her acceptance letter, her short pink hair clearly visible.
She posted the heartwarming photo on social media. What she never expected was that this innocent picture would unleash a catastrophe.
Simply because of her pink hair, she faced a tidal wave of criticism:
“Pink hair? Clearly not a decent person.” “Definitely a nightclub hostess!” “Grandfather-granddaughter love? More like a staged photo to show off!”
Marketing accounts stole the photo to use in advertisements for college prep courses. More and more strangers piled on, attacking her with insulting language. Some even interpreted the photo as evidence of a “relationship between a young woman and an older man.”
This absurd but overwhelming online abuse devastated Lily’s life.
At first, she fought back bravely, trying to use legal means to counter the cyberbullying, but the process was incredibly difficult.
“The harm Lily suffered came from the combined force of countless keyboard warriors, each contributing just a comment or two,” explained Jin Xiaohang, Lily’s lawyer. “But to hold someone legally responsible, a post needs at least 5,000 views or 500 shares to constitute defamation under the criminal law at that time. Individual comments rarely met the legal threshold for prosecution.”
As the lawsuit struggled to move forward, malicious trolls created countless new accounts to flood her inbox with hate, and her school received repeated complaint calls. The prolonged cyberbullying eventually broke her.
She was diagnosed with severe depression. She quietly dyed her pink hair back to black, gritted her teeth through gym sessions, and tried to focus on her studies.
In November 2022, she interrupted her studies and returned to Hangzhou for treatment. In early 2023, from her hospital bed, she spoke to a reporter with one last flicker of hope: “After I die… maybe society will finally pay attention to cyberbullying? Will the people who said those things feel any guilt?”
In January 2023, before winter had fully retreated, Lily chose to leave this world.
She left behind a letter listing the causes of her inner wounds. Cyberbullying was the first reason.
If none of this had happened, her future would have been bright. She was the star pupil of vocal teacher Zhou Min, who once praised her: “She was the most outstanding student I’ve had in my 20 years of teaching. She won so many awards across different areas.”
Yet even after her death, the rumors surrounding her didn’t stop. Her name was ultimately reduced to a sensationalized internet label, while the malice remained, continuously spewing its toxic fumes.
Under the obituary of this 23-year-old woman, one highly-upvoted comment asked: “Will the people who attacked her feel even a little guilt?”
The responses were chilling:
“What’s the big deal?” “Choosing to end her life? How fragile!” “This proves what people said about her wasn’t completely wrong, right?”
She wasn’t the first person harmed by cyberbullying, and she certainly won’t be the last. But her ending is the most heartbreaking.
After Lily’s death, other young women continued to suffer from false accusations. Fortunately, some of them found ways to fight back.
The Stories of Survivors
“I Defended Myself and Ended Up Apologizing”
“Falsely accused of sleeping around during freshman year, then misunderstood by my teacher. I did something impulsive and now need help.” This was a plea posted by Rachel Lin on social media on March 27.
In 2023, during her freshman year, an anonymous post appeared on her university’s popular “Confession Wall” platform. It claimed a girl was being flirtatious with multiple guys despite having a boyfriend. The post used vicious language, not only attacking the girl’s character but also mocking her appearance and body shape, calling her a “tank.”
At first, Rachel had no idea about any of this.
Then one day, her academic advisor suddenly called her in for a talk, tentatively asking many personal questions.
“She asked where my boyfriend was from, when we started dating, and so on…” Seeing Rachel’s confused expression, the teacher reluctantly informed her that someone had posted on the “Confession Wall” explicitly naming and insulting her.
Completely unaware, Rachel defended herself, saying the person described in the post wasn’t her and was purely malicious slander.
After the teacher left, she analyzed the situation with friends and asked around, trying to find who was behind the accusations.
After a fruitless search, she contacted the platform administrators. “They said they regularly clear screenshots, remembered the incident, but claimed user information was anonymized, so they shouldn’t know who posted it.”
Rachel couldn’t understand why the teacher said her name was in the post, but she was too afraid to ask.
For over a year, she searched for clues without success.
In her sophomore year, she moved to a different campus with new roommates, and finally learned the truth.
Her new roommate told her that the girl who was actually being criticized in the post had spread rumors claiming Rachel was the one being attacked in the post. But in reality, many details in the post clearly pointed to that girl herself. For example, the locations on the train tickets mentioned in the post matched the school where that girl’s boyfriend studied.
Rachel was furious. “This affected me tremendously. Many people at school knew about it and looked at me with contempt. Even my professors knew and misunderstood me.”
After learning the truth, she immediately went to clear things up with her advisor. Then she confronted the girl privately. The girl admitted to framing Rachel but denied being the actual subject of the original post.
Angry and hurt, Rachel took screenshots of the original post and the girl’s photos (with identifying information blurred), and submitted them to the confession wall. She just wanted to clarify that she wasn’t the person described in the post.
“Why should she be allowed to throw dirt on me while I can’t expose her?” The post was deleted less than 20 minutes after being published. “I realized it was impulsive and probably not the right thing to do.”
But this impulsive action transformed Rachel from victim to “villain.”
When the girl saw the post, she immediately reported it to the police. Seeing that Rachel was cooperative and showed a good attitude, the police suggested they resolve the matter privately and ultimately didn’t press charges.
But when news of this reached the school, teachers learned that Rachel had “posted something defamatory about someone else and the police had filed a case.”
“Their impression of me was completely ruined.” Confused and in pain, Rachel didn’t know what to do. She wrote an apology letter to her teachers: “I know I was impulsive and what I did was wrong. I accept the criticism.”
She anonymously shared her story online, hoping for advice on how to salvage her reputation with her teachers. As for the false accusations she’d suffered, she no longer had the energy to fight back.
“My Dad Was My Strongest Defender”
Jenny was attending an international school when something unforgettable happened during the second semester of her sophomore year.
A new boy, Alex, transferred into her class. Initially, Jenny had little interaction with him, as she was closer to another boy in class, Brian.
Alex and Brian became roommates. Soon, conflict arose between them. Jenny wasn’t clear about their issues, but the drama eventually pulled her in.
Alex started spreading rumors that Jenny and Brian were dating and had sexual relations, even claiming she was pregnant.
The rumors grew increasingly outrageous, eventually evolving to suggest Jenny had cheated on Brian with Alex.
Before long, Jenny discovered that Alex was the source of these rumors. She and Brian approached their homeroom teacher together, but the resolution left them disappointed.
“They just made Alex say ‘sorry’ in the office and write a reflection letter.”
Jenny couldn’t accept such a lightweight punishment. Even if Alex publicly clarified the truth, she worried no one would listen or believe him.
During evening study hall, Brian called his mom, and Jenny called her dad, hoping their parents could help them get justice.
“When my dad heard about it, he immediately said he was coming to the school,” Jenny recalled.
That night, Jenny’s father pushed open the classroom door and roared loud enough for the entire floor to hear: “Which one is Alex?!” His fury terrified everyone present.
He pointed at Alex’s nose and shouted:
“What did you say about my daughter? Are you even a man?”
“Who cheated on who?”
“If you weren’t a minor, you’d have already lost that leg.”
The teacher tried desperately to calm him down and eventually got him to the office. When the teacher asked Jenny what outcome she wanted, her father immediately interrupted: “Don’t ask the kid. It matters what we parents want.”
In the end, her father demanded Alex apologize in front of the entire school.
When facing malicious slander, support from those around you is crucial. In this storm, Jenny was hurt, but her father’s love and protection prevented the damage from escalating.
“With Thousands of Enemies, I’m Still Fighting”
“Don’t ask why girls wear makeup. Ask why the creeps who steal their photos are still alive!”
When Mia first fought back against the cruel comments, she was shaking with anger.
She had already endured two years of these bitter, depressing days. And it all started with a selfie—a photo of herself crying.
On May 6, 2025, Mia publicly explained the origin of the image on social media.
Two years earlier, she had read a touching book. With her low emotional threshold and strong empathy, she cried all evening. “I felt like I looked like a sad frog, so I casually took a photo and sent it to my friends, then posted it on a short video platform.”
But this tear-stained image robbed the 19-year-old of any peace in her life.
One day, a friend suddenly sent her a male enhancement drug advertisement with obscene text—featuring her crying photo.
Mia was stunned, but at that moment, she had no idea that worse was yet to come.
After that, she frequently received similar images. Relatives, friends, and classmates all sent them to her. Sometimes, walking down the street, people would point at her saying, “Isn’t that the girl from the male enhancement ads?”
The comments sections of these ads on adult websites were filled with vulgar language targeting her.
This May, something even more devastating happened.
A fan told her that her crying photo had been used in a “climax shot” advertisement on an adult website, even making it to the homepage.
Those disgusting ad slogans were printed right on her face.
This intense humiliation deeply tormented her.
In her video, she faced the camera and cried out: “I don’t know what I did wrong!”
A completely ordinary selfie had put this 19-year-old girl on adult websites, where countless people “visually violated” her. These fabricated images were widely shared, each getting thousands of likes, some even tens of thousands.
She embarked on a long and difficult journey to defend her rights, only to be told she needed to submit extensive materials with no guarantee of success. A video platform once sent her a “impersonation governance” link, with the condition that she needed to reach 10,000 followers to apply for protection.
Fortunately, Mia’s follower count met the requirement.
However, when she shared her rights protection process on the platform, harsh voices emerged again: “How does she know her photo is on adult websites? She must have been browsing them herself. She’s not innocent either.”
Mia created a fan group where followers comforted her daily, offered suggestions, and helped monitor accounts misusing her image.
Fans consoled her, saying, “Don’t listen to those meaningless voices. You need to stay happy.”
Various media outlets also supported her, reporting on her situation. A tech center provided technical support, submitting copyright declarations, authorization letters, and blocking requests to the server service provider of the involved websites to curb the spread of infringing content.
Just on short video platforms, over 10,000 pieces of content were removed, but image theft still persists. Platform detection systems can only identify identical photos; if text or advertisements are added to the photos, they cannot be recognized.
During her fight for justice, Mia discovered that such image theft for traffic had formed an entire industry chain. In various part-time job groups, supervisors assign tasks and provide image and text materials, while ordinary part-time workers post content as required, earning about $5 per post. These traffic-generating accounts are all registered with fake information, making it very difficult to trace the actual users.
Despite the long and difficult road to justice, Mia remains determined: “I will definitely persist in defending my rights. Many girls are experiencing the same thing, and I don’t want victims to be silenced.”
“The Girl Who Almost Died from Rumors Launched a Counterattack”
When Wendy was studying abroad in high school, she met another Chinese international student who became her roommate.
Her roommate’s life philosophy was straightforward: “If I cared what the world thought of me, I’d really be better off dead.”
Her catchphrase was equally direct: “Ignore them, just do it.”
“Brave, bold, passionate.” That’s how Wendy described this roommate. “She was a very beautiful Chinese girl who always posted unfiltered, makeup-free selfies.”
Her roommate’s goal was to attend Ewha Womans University in Korea. She never slacked off but also never overworked herself. If her GPA was too low one semester, she’d cut out all activities besides studying the next semester, studying from morning until late night.
Yet this excellent and mentally strong girl was targeted by more than 30 boys spreading sexual rumors about her across various platforms.
The boys spreading rumors didn’t reveal much personal information on the platforms. The girls captured all IDs and comments, organized them into timelines and relationship maps, cross-compared IDs across multiple platforms and their friend information, pieced together clues, and eventually uncovered the real names and colleges of several rumor-spreaders.
As a friend of the victim, Wendy posted on various platforms refuting the “sexual rumors” and establishing the accusers’ guilt of “fabricating sexual rumors.” They were encouraged to see many unknown women standing up in support.
Following her roommate’s instructions, she called the dorm administrator’s emergency line, claiming the victim was mentally devastated by the false sexual rumors and had lost her will to live, hoping to get the school’s attention.
After compiling all materials, they emailed the school about the incident, including an event description, timeline analysis, comment screenshots, information about the rumor-spreaders, and the victim’s extremely serious mental state. Additionally, they prepared a PDF of recent domestic and international cases handling false sexual rumors for the school’s “reference.”
“If the school disappoints us, we’ll report the rumor-spreaders and the school directly to women’s organizations and the police.” According to Wendy, leveraging social media power was also part of their plan.
Such swift and comprehensive countermeasures left the rumor-spreaders no room for excuses. Eventually, they received various punishments, including suspension.
“As long as you don’t want to be a victim, there are no victims in this world. No one can hurt you,” her roommate told her.
When invisible blades target these women, every ray of light that illuminates the truth becomes the most powerful counterattack against the abusers.
In a world where a single rumor can destroy a life, these stories show both the devastating power of online hate and the strength of those who fight back. While Lily’s story ended in tragedy, others found ways to stand up against their abusers.
The battle against cyberbullying continues, but with each person who speaks out, the path to justice becomes a little clearer.
