Human Flesh Search

Human Flesh Searches, also called renrou sousuo, are online searches that begins on a forum, bulletin, or blog in order to identify and expose true identities of people online. It originally began as a means to publicly research and humiliate citizens and to break the censorship of the Peoples Republic of China. It is currently largely used to expose people who, according to the people on the forum, have committed some sort of crime. The searchers gather any information they can on their target, such as: credit card numbers, home address, work address, names of family members, email accounts, and phone numbers. This information is used to publicly humiliate the person by getting them fired, ruining their credit, or even forcing them to move. Human flesh searching is one way Chinese citizens rebel against the People's Republic of China's Internet censorship.

Total Information Exposure

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History

The term "Human Flesh Searches" came from an earlier time when the searches were human-driven. The computer driven searches began in 2001 when a male netizen posted a picture of Chen Ziyao on the MOP forum, claiming she was his girlfriend. Other forum users found that she was actually a model for Microsoft and posted her personal information in the forum to expose the netizen's lie. This incident is noted as marking the start of human flesh searches. These types of searches gained more attention in 2006 when a woman posted a video of herself stomping a kitten to death with her stilettos on the website crushworld.net. Human flesh searchers on the MOP forum website identified the location of where the video was filmed and named the target of their search the "Kitten Killer of Hangzhou". They gathered her personal information and found that the woman in the video was Wang Jiao, a 41-year old nurse from Heilongjiang Provence. As a result of the human flesh search Wang was fired from her job and forced to move to a new city along with the man who shot the video.

Notable Examples

In 2007 Wang Fei and his mistress Dong Fang were the subjects of a human flesh search because Wang's wife, Jiang Yan, committed suicide by leaping out of a 24-story building when she found out about Dong Fang. Jiang Yan kept a private blog diary, which depicted the depression she felt as a result of her failed marriage. Jiang's friend, Zhang Leyi, started the search when she posted the blog diary entries on the Tianya.cn forum. Wang Fei and Dong Fang's personal information was posted on the forum and their homes were vandalized. Wang Fei was also fired from his job at Saatchi & Saatch. In 2008 Wang Fei sued Tianya and Zhang Leyi for violating his privacy and provoking the defamation of his character. A quote from Wang's lawyer, Zhang Yanfeng, “The human-flesh search has unimaginable power. First it was a lot of phone calls every day. Then people painted red characters on his parents’ front door, which said things like, ‘You caused your wife’s suicide, so you should pay.’ ”

In one case Chinese cyber-citizens human-flesh-searched a government official who had attempted to molest a young girl in 2008. In this particular human-flesh-search, a security tape video was posted on the forum, which depicts a young girl running up to her parents and brother while Chinese subtitles explain that an older man (the government official) had tried to force the girl into the bathroom to molest her. The video continues to show the girl’s father and the older man arguing; the subtitles read that the man confesses to the crime while boasting of his power and position in the government. The search gathered personal information on the government official and found out what governmental position he held. The commotion generated from the forum got the official fired, even though the police said, they did not have sufficient evidence to indict him. Human-flesh-searches are a way for chinese citizens to go against the Chinese government in Internet censorship conflicts.

Zhang Ya posted a video monologue commenting on the earthquake that hit Sichuan China May 12th, 2008, making her a target of a search. In her video she is complaining about the catastrophe and states that the earthquake was not strong enough. Netizens gathered extensive information on Zhang, she was expelled from school, and received a large number of death threats as a result of posting her monologue.

Ethical Implications

Human flesh searching is a form of Internet stalking. It can be described as preying on an individual using information found on the Internet; a type of Cyberbullying. Some believe it is not ethical to invade a person's privacy on the internet, but if the information is out there, then no one can stop someone from looking up the information. On the other hand, many of the searches have revealed crimes being done in the offline world which are also clearly unethical. Human flesh searching is mainly popular in China where there is a different set of laws and legal process than in the United States, although the group Anonymous can be seen as a vibrant example of conducting flesh searches in America.

There are ethical questions raised about the censorship by the Peoples Republic of China, and whether it is ethical for citizens to find ways around this censorship. Whether or not one agrees with this censorship, it is undoubtedly unethical to perform such cyberstalking and cyberbullying. Even when the motivation behind conducting these searches may be ethical and for the better of a community, it does not justify the invasion into others personal lives. Human search fleshing often leads to a crossing of the line between harmless online actions and real-life consequences. It is difficult to say that the exposure of criminals, such as a molester, is unethical, but unethical actions by one person does not lead to justification of unethical actions by others. These searchers are acting as vigilantes, trying to enforce an ethical code without fair trial. A human-flesh-search must throw up some red flags in most individuals code of ethics, everyone deserves the right to a fair chance to explain themselves. Someone could be crucified by a human-flesh-search party that caught wind of an embellished rumor. Vigilantes are criminals in most countries because ethical codes are too big to be decided by an individual or even a small group. Consequently, that is why justice systems are in place.

See Also

• Crowdsourcing
• Cyberbullying
• Internet Censorship in Hong Kong
• Tianya Club