Photo via FMT
Veveonah Mosibin, the “treetop girl”, who recently gained popularity after posting a video of herself climbing a tree to get better internet connection to take an exam, seems to have disconnected herself from all her social media networks.
This comes amid plenty of negative comments thrown at her after Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin, mistakenly said in Parliament that she did not sit for any exam at that time and was merely recording the video just for clout.
Photo via The Star
It’s understood that the 18-year-old, who comes from a village in Sabah with poor road access and internet connectivity, was hurt by what happened, and just couldn’t handle the negativity.
She was last seen on her Instagram on Friday (September 4th), where she posted her exam schedule and said that “Fake news is dangerous, I get lots of negative comments. All clear but we need to be fair.”
It’s also understood that what transpired had also affected her batchmates, many of whom faced similar technical issues when sitting for the exam.
For those of you who don’t know, this all started in Parliament on Thursday (September 3rd), when Senator Datuk Donald Peter Mojuntin asked in the Dewan Negara what was being done to ensure proper Internet access in rural areas, citing Veveonah’s case as an example.
Deputy Minister Zahidi then replied claiming Veveonah was just a YouTuber who wanted publicity, and that she wasn’t sitting for any exams when she uploaded the video in June.
In actual fact, her exams were held from June 9th to 12th, and her pre-recorded video was uploaded on June 13th.
Zahidi did apologise to Veveonah in a Facebook post on Thursday itself, admitting he was misinformed.
He wrote, “I wish to apologise to Veveonah Mosibin and will make a correction in the Dewan Negara on Monday (today).”
Be careful with what you say on social media. You never know how a person could be affected with merely words.
Cyberbullying is not cool!
by Kyle Roshen Jacob
