Targets have included cheating spouses, corrupt government officials, and amateur porn makers, as well as citizens or journalists viewed as unpatriotic.
By Jeremy Hsu Posted 03.05.2010 at 3:13 pm 10 Comments

Chinese Netizens Chinese Internet cafe users The Guardian/Dan Chung

There's a new type of vigilante roaming across China. But unlike Batman or other caped superheroes, who work with a few sidekicks at most, this type of faceless vigilante draws power from legions of netizens who channel Internet crowd-sourcing to become "human-flesh search engines" that hunt down and punish wrongdoers in real life. The New York Times reports on the phenomenon.

The movement took off in early 2006, when an infamous online video of a middle-aged Chinese woman killing a kitten sparked thousands of responses and online calls for retribution. Chinese netizens tracked down the kitten killer's home in just six days and made her name, phone number and employer public, which led to both the woman and the cameraman who filmed her losing relatively cushy government jobs.

Similar examples of netizen vigilante justice have taken place in the U.S., South Korea and other nations. But only Chinese netizens have embraced human-flesh search engines as a regular practice to punish a wide range of people, not unlike the smaller groups of more computer-savvy hackers who gang up to attack perceived foreign or domestic enemies.

Targets have included cheating spouses, corrupt government officials, and amateur porn makers, as well as citizens or journalists viewed as unpatriotic. Tactics and goals include getting the offenders fired from jobs, publicly shaming them in front of neighbors, and perhaps running them out of town.

In 2007, a distraught woman's suicide led Chinese netizens to go after her cheating husband and the husband's girlfriend. Another incident in 2008 spurred the human-flesh search to go after a provincial government official who allegedly tried to force a little girl into the men's bathroom, as seen on a security camera.

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Tags

Technology, Jeremy Hsu, china, computers, crowd-sourcing, human-flesh search engines, human-flesh searches, injustic, Internet, justice, netizens, vigilante
As satisfying as much of this may sound, the frenzy of a human-flesh search can also seem blind to the facts and is not driven by any systematic or impartial approach to choosing targets. The cheating husband was hardly a singular example in China -- he and the wife who committed suicide were headed for divorce. Restaurant staff said that the government official may have been drunk and didn't necessarily intend to molest the young girl, but was caught up in an argument with the girl's rich family.

Another human-flesh search target, undergrad-student Grace Wang, drew the ire of patriotic Chinese netizens after she tried to mediate between pro-Tibet and pro-China protesters at Duke University. And a woman who argued that the government was coldly using the devastating earthquake in May 2008 to rally nationalist sentiment also became a target of human-flesh searchers.

Rebecca MacKinnon, a researcher at Princeton University, told the New York Times that China's central government may allow the human-flesh searches as a safety valve that allows Chinese netizens to vent anger over injustices. Despite some government censorship of the Internet, China leaves most of the forums and Internet activity alone for the most part.

That strategy of taming the Wild West Internet without actually exerting total control may have paid off so far for China. It's telling that all targets have been fairly lowly officials or normal citizens -- no human-flesh search has ever targeted higher-level officials, despite public perception of corruption there as well.

[via New York Times]

10 Comments

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trireme
03/05/10 at 4:09 pm

So instead of Big Brother watching your every move, you get 1.2 billion little brothers and sisters hunting you down... not sure which is more terrifying.

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Marrach
03/05/10 at 5:52 pm

Of course the Little Brothers & Sisters will NEVER dare go after the BIG Brothers and High Officials. The Security agents in the Black leather coats and dark glasses will show up at night and then there will be several tellingly empty chairs in the above pictured Internet Cafe.

And everyone else around those chairs would KNOW why those chairs are empty. . .and say NOTHING because they know what will happen. They will Disappear. . .Permanently. And NO Netizen will Human-Flesh-Search for them. On the other hand, someone doing a Human-Flesh-Search for transplant organs may actually find these people. . in parts and parcels.

Sometimes, Western Media & Pop Sci keep forgetting: China is NOT A DEMOCRACY. Nor is it really a Communist State either. It is a True AUTOCRACY that has discovered that Capitalism, Technology and Fascism can be perfect bedfellows with each other.

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animemaster
03/07/10 at 2:29 pm

Netizens vs /b/ the ultimate showdown.

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scubasdsteve87
03/08/10 at 4:01 am

HMMMM, so its legal to hunt down people who are suspected of wrong doing. Isn't hazing and harassment illegal? Yet these people who hunt others down go unpunished.

Lets say I will take naked pics of myself, make a website to post them. Once these people look me up (crap, i'll even post my name and address on the website) ill sue them for harassment and hazing.

Making amateur porn, cheating, and everything else mentioned is not against any laws where as what these people are doing is definitely against the law.

If you don't like what these people are doing then don't pay attention to them. Easy.

I have lost faith in humanity.

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Oakspar77777
03/08/10 at 1:22 pm

Cheating is against the law, even in the US - breach of contract. Go into a divorce as the cheating partner and see how much you walk out with.

In China, porn is considered indescent and is against the law. Note that most amatuer porn in the US is in violation of local descency laws, or laws specifically reguarding the production of adult entertainment (such as having birth certificates on file, etc).

While vigillantism is, in itself, unlawful in most parts of the world, that does not excuse the unfaithful, profane, explotative, or abusive actions of those being so hunted.

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tostrong4you
03/08/10 at 1:25 pm

This is TERRIBLE news!!!!!

I know some may say, if your doing nothing wrong then you dont have anything to worry about,

But thats not the point!!

Imagine a world were anyone can and will snitch you out for anything! Even your kids!

People will get insanely paranoid and avoid socializing.
I would HATE to live in a world were everyone is snitching on everyone

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kstauff
03/08/10 at 4:23 pm

Oakspar:

I usually agree with your take on things, but in this case I'll offer a differing view.

This is mob rule. Whether these people have committed crimes should not be left to masses of persons who are completely detached from the events and dispense justice based upon a video or other hearsay. It is a failure of the Chinese government to protect the rights of their citizens by permitting this behavior.

But then, it's not surprising either. In fact, I wouldn't be shocked to find the government behind some of the "evidence" being dropped like raw meat to these "netizens".

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xyrobiuz
03/08/10 at 6:04 pm

I think vigilantes and every offenders are all wrong but we cannot stop this from happening , this is already prophesied the "wicked will destroy the wicked" in the last days

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figooo
06/04/10 at 8:50 am

Netizens vs /b/ the ultimate showdown.
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