A lesson in cyber etiquette

SGGPO 11/04/2023 17:47

The incident involving a pet supply business named Spa Pet Shop Nhat Tien (Nguyen Khuyen Street, Ward 2, Bao Loc City, Lam Dong Province) which had false information posted on social media, causing serious damage to its business, has just ended with an apology from the person concerned. This is truly a lesson in proper behavior in cyberspace.

The incident happened at around 8:00 p.m. on May 29, 2023, when two strange girls came in to buy something. Ms. Truong Thi Thanh Lan, the mother of Mr. Lam Nhat Tien (the business owner), came out to receive them. When they arrived at the store, one girl stood outside asking for the store's wifi password, the other girl went inside to look and asked to buy cat food.

After asking about many items but not buying, they whispered to each other and then sent pictures and prices of the products online. Seeing something unusual, Mrs. Lan did not agree and asked the two girls to leave the store, but they argued and argued with her. Immediately after that, Mrs. Lan's husband came upstairs from downstairs and saw what happened, immediately intervened, exchanged words and asked the two girls to leave the store.

Chăm sóc thú cưng tại cơ sở. Ảnh: HỒNG HUÊ

Pet care at the facility. Photo: HONG HUE

That was all, but that very night, one of the two girls named An (Facebook: TAT) texted the store owner, Mr. Tien, threatening the couple, Lan, and asking them to apologize, with the threat, "If my parents don't apologize, I'll post it online so my family can't do business."

Not only did the two girls post false information about the store on Nguyen Khuyen Street, they also spoke ill of another business location of Mr. Tien's family on Nguyen Van Troi Street (also in Ward 2, Bao Loc City) on social media, causing the business to decline, with the revenue of the two establishments decreasing by about 50% compared to before.

In order not to affect the business, Mr. Tien agreed to apologize with the condition that they hide the post. However, after learning that these two girls falsely accused Ms. Lan's family of beating them up and took them to the Police Station of Ward 2, Bao Loc City, Mr. Tien's family did not apologize to them anymore but decided to clarify right and wrong.

Mr. Tien's family sent a complaint to Bao Loc City Police to request that this agency consider handling it according to the provisions of the law. And after the police got involved, both sides agreed to reconcile. The final result was that Mr. Tien's family withdrew the complaint on the condition that the girl who posted the false information apologized. And recently, on the Facebook of the girl with the nickname TAT, an official apology was posted, the content of which is as follows: "On May 29, 2023, I posted an article recounting my unhappy experience at this shop, but because in the heat of the moment, I made incorrect judgments about the incident, which may have affected the shop's business activities a lot. I posted this article to publicly apologize to Pet Shop Nhat Tien for my rash actions."

The incident seems to have been resolved peacefully between the two parties, but this is a useful lesson for cyberspace users to avoid making malicious comments that unintentionally infringe upon the legitimate interests of others that are protected by law.

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