Don’t let “conspiracy theories” bring secondary harm, girl missing on beach

On October 4, a 4-and-a-half-year-old girl disappeared at Nanhui New Town Beach in Shanghai, which has been affecting people's hearts these days. While everyone expressed concern and worry, some netizens began to speculate, interpret and even fabricate various conspiracy theories to "put a blame" on the family. Some people said with certainty: The father is actually the stepfather, and the girl has been abandoned several times. Second-rate.

In this regard, the relevant departments have responded: the missing girl's family is from the original family, and there is no case that the girl has been lost. Social media platforms have also dealt with individual users who spread false information, posted personal attacks, insults and abuses and other extreme remarks against relatives of the parties concerned. But even so, some netizens still have no intention of stopping their conspiracy theories. Those unquestionable tones even gave people a feeling of "it would be no pity to kill someone by mistake".

The heart-wrenching comments made by some netizens seem very familiar to me. Four years ago, when I went to Hangzhou to cover the case of the missing girl in Chun'an, netizens also criticized and abused the girl's family, including various conspiracy theories. Although these speculations were later proven to be false, the harm caused by online violence and rumors to the family involved has already occurred and will not subside for a long time. On the other hand, the keyboard warriors who used bad words at the beginning can throw away their hands and leave after they have exhausted all their efforts, and continue to rush to the next hot spot to start group ridicule, and earn a wave of traffic. It is really a "cost-effective" deal.

Of course, there are also voices of reason. Some netizens said that what happened has already happened. People who don’t know the truth should not make conspiracy theories. Parents are also very sad. Others pointed out that those who attacked the family did not feel sorry for the little girl, but were just venting their emotions. But these rational voices were quickly drowned in a sea of ​​emotions.

This seems to be the current dilemma of the Internet. In recent years, there have been many extreme emotional expressions in cyberspace, and it is not uncommon for single incidents to be demonized, amplified, and exaggerated without any basis. It has become a phenomenon that must be paid attention to.

In fact, most netizens express concern and anger out of simple empathy and have no malicious intentions. Many of them may also be parents, have strong sympathy for this matter, blame the father involved, and even feel indignant. This is human nature and should be understood. However, if this emotion is blindly amplified, and even leads to a lot of unfounded speculations and conspiracy theories, it will change the flavor, which will not only easily cause secondary harm to the parties involved, but will also not help solve the incident.

Others said that if they had been at the scene, such a thing would never have happened. In my opinion, this is hindsight, something everyone can say something nice about afterwards. Otherwise, there would be no surprises in this world. The reason why accidents are called accidents is because they are small-probability events, which cannot be completely avoided by being careful everywhere. Who can pat their chests and guarantee that they can prevent any accidents from happening in their lifetime?

A reality we have to accept is that from a global perspective, accidents involving children occur in a certain proportion and cannot be eliminated 100%. Surveys show that in China, drowning is the number one cause of death among children aged 1 to 14, posing a serious threat to children's lives.

Of course, there is nothing we can do in the face of accidents. There are many issues worthy of discussion, including the rationality of guardianship methods and the causes of various accident risks. But at this moment, no matter how much we say, it is only hindsight, especially for the father involved. I believe that no one is more sad, more painful, and more regretful than him, and no one is more reflective than him. too much. The most painful thing is definitely the parents, not the people on the other end of the network cable.

Saying this is not to excuse parents. Parents naturally have responsibilities that they must bear. I just think that now that the incident has happened, what we can do is not to become indifferent spectators, stop making groundless speculations and accusations, let alone create and spread various conspiracy theories to add salt to the wounds of others.

Due to emotions and reasons, the pain of the person involved does not need to be reminded over and over again. This is also a kind of comparison of hearts.