Offensive comments were left on his Instagram account and his personal details were also revealed
A public poll on Telegram sought approval to release the student’s personal details.A son of a police officer was targeted for cyberbullying this morning, after criticising members of a secondary school’s extradition bill concern group on Instagram.
Administrators of the telegram channel hkaneyeforaneye urged its subscribers to bully the student by publicising his personal Instagram account on the channel. Screenshots of his provocative comments, his first and last name, grade, and portrait were also revealed. At 1.10pm, Young Post found the post had been deleted.
Before the post appeared, a public poll had been created on the channel asking its subscribers to vote for or against disclosing the student’s personal details, with a majority supporting the decision.
Two netizens had left offensive comments on the student’s personal Instagram account, after information about him was shared on Telegram.
The student involved left provocative messages on an Instagram post of a secondary school extradition bill concern group, which was trying to persuade its students to participate in the upcoming school strikes. The comments included “Why get involved in politics when you should study?” and “If you [extradition bill protesters] are daring enough, don’t go to school and fight on the street”.
The student’s comments attracted a lot of attention, including hostile and threatening replies such as “Wish you a smooth start going back to school” and “Wow, why don’t you join the pro-Beijing camp, as you’re mentally handicapped?”
“I didn’t expect to be targeted [by cyberbullies] at all,” the student, who wishes to remain unnamed, told Young Post. He added that he didn’t feel bad about the comments made against him. “I don’t care honestly, and I have no shame being a policeman’s child,” said the student, who will be starting school in Canada.
Hong Kong protests: Pro-democracy activists arrested
When asked about his intention to leave confrontational comments on a student concern group’s public page, he said he wanted the protesters to stop their actions, especially those who use violence to achieve their ends. “Assaulting the police is against the law, and it has to stop immediately,” he said.
Two days ago, a thread emerged on a local online forum, LIHKG, titled: “A low-cost way to boycott [the police’s children]: replace their names with class numbers”. As of 3:45 pm on Friday, the original post has garnered 7212 likes and 27 dislikes. A lot of netizens also showed support towards the act by encouraging other people to do so.
One comment said: “It’s best if the number can imitate the prisoner’s number. For example, if that person is in class 3A with the number 26, we can call them 3126, so on and so forth.”
Another comment said: “Teachers have always called us by our class numbers.”
Last week, five pro-Beijing politicians set up a group to fight school bullying in Hong Kong, with special emphasis on children of police officers and mainland migrants being targeted by school bullies amid the ongoing extradition bill protests.