China Digital Times

China news tagged with: human flesh search engines (19)

• China’s Cyberposse

  

  The New York Times Magazine takes a look at China’s “human flesh search engines”:

  AT THE BEIJING headquarters of Mop, Ben Du, the site’s head of interactive communities, told me that the Chinese term for human-flesh search engine has been around since 2001, when it was used to describe a search that was human-powered rather than computer-driven. Mop had a forum called human-flesh search engine, where users could pose questions about entertainment trivia that other users would answer: a type of crowd-sourcing. The kitten-killer case and subsequent hunts changed all that. Some Netizens, including Du, argue that the term continues to mean a cooperative, crowd-sourced investigation. “It’s just Netizens helping each other and sharing information,” he told me. But the Chinese public’s primary understanding of the term is no longer so benign. The popular meaning is now not just a search by humans but also a search for humans, initially performed online but intended to cause real-world consequences. Searches have been directed against all kinds of people, including cheating spouses, corrupt government officials, amateur pornography makers, Chinese citizens who are perceived as unpatriotic, journalists who urge a moderate stance on Tibet and rich people who try to game the Chinese system. Human-flesh searches highlight what people are willing to fight for: the political issues, polarizing events and contested moral standards that are the fault lines of contemporary China.

  Versions of the human-flesh search have taken place in other countries. In the United States in 2006, one online search singled out a woman who found a cellphone in a New York City taxi and started to use it as her own, rebuffing requests from the phone’s rightful owner to return it. In South Korea in 2005, Internet users identified and shamed a young woman who was caught on video refusing to clean up after her dog on a Seoul subway car. But China is the only place in the world with a nearly universal recognition (among Internet users) of the concept. I met a film director in China who was about to release a feature film based on a human-flesh-search story and a mystery writer who had just published a novel titled “Human-Flesh Search.”

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  • March 6, 2010 1:09 AM

• New Weekly: Best of the Web 2009

  

  This week’s featured article in New Weekly (新周刊) focuses on the Internet in China. Part 1 of their feature is a highlight of the “Best of the Web 2009,” chosen by the magazine, industry insiders, and netizens. Below is that list, excerpted.

  

  China’s Homepage: Sina News (新浪新闻)

  Innovator: Hou Xiaoqiang, CEO of Shanda Literature (侯小强)

  Most valuable website (News category): Yeeyan
  Nominations: Caijing, Financial Times CN, Wikipedia, Yeeyan (财经网、FT中文网、维基百科、译言)

  Most valuable website (Commercial and financial category): Taobao
  Nominations: Anjuke, East Money, LetPower, 360buy, Taobao (安居客、东方财富网、记账网、京东商城、淘宝网)

  Most valuable website (Opinion category): Tianya
  Nominations: Baidu Tieba, Cat898, Mop, Tianya, Sina Microblogging (百度贴吧、凯迪社区、猫扑、天涯社区、新浪微博客)

  Most valuable website (Services category): DianPing
  Nominations: DianPing, O.cn, Kuxun, liba.com, 55BBS (大众点评网、都市圈、酷讯旅游网、篱笆网、我爱打折网)

  Most valuable website (Social category): Kaixin
  Nominations: Facebook, Hainei, Kaixin, 51mole.com, RenRen (Facebook中文版、海内网、开心网、摩尔庄园、人人网)

  Most valuable website (Multimedia category): Tudou
  Nominations: Haoting, Top100.cn, Tudou, 1ting, Youku (好听音乐网、巨鲸音乐、土豆网、一起听音乐网、优酷网)

  Most valuable website (Literature and arts category): Qidian
  Nominations: Artbaba, Qidian, Readnovel.com, Artron.net (Artbaba、起点中文网、小说阅读网、雅昌艺术网)

  Most valuable website (Fashion category): Haibao
  Nominations: Fashion Trend Digest, Haibao, Modern Party, onlylady (FTD观潮网、海报时尚网、摩登夜会、onlylady)

  Best niche website: Douban
  Nominations: Douban, Songshuhui, Kongfz.com, Xitek, Pepo.cn (豆瓣、科学松鼠会、孔夫子旧书网、色影无忌、小众玩家门户网)

  Best blog: Li Chengpeng
  Nominations: Han Han, Hong Huang, Huang Jiwei, Li Chengpeng, Lian Yue (韩寒、洪晃、黄集伟、李承鹏、连岳)

  The second feature portion is “China’s Internet Life Red Paper,” and the third is “The Internet: Putting People First.” An excerpt from the “Red Paper” on how the effects of the Internet are being felt offline:

  In February 2009, the “Eluding the Cat” case broke out in Yunnan and attracted the country’s attention. The Yunnan Publicity Department then made the unprecedented move of inviting netizens to form an investigation committee. “Eluding the Cat” became a popular Internet phrase. Later in May 2009, because the police evaluation of the “5·7″ incident was unsatisfactory, netizens created the term “qishima” [homophone of "70 km per hour"] to satirize the car’s purported speed. Then in July 2009, “Pull Down Pants Gate” and other videos spread on the net; discussions and debates about the post-90s generation flourished.

  Today’s Internet is no longer simply an illusory world. Not only does it affect reality to some degree, it also provides an effective outlet for expression.

  “The Internet’s three big forms of physical exercise” are “buying soy sauce,” “doing push ups,” and “eluding the cat.” Each has come from actual news. “The Internet’s 10 mythical creatures,” with “Grass Mud Horse” leading the way, were a form of netizen expression. Human flesh search engines showed their strength starting from 2006 Heilongjiang’s “kitten killer” incident. Today, the phenomenon has developed to the point that after most news events happen, different degrees of the “human flesh search engine” will be at work. And breaking Internet news is becoming increasingly popular; the country’s entertainment reporters all go to Tianya to look for news sources, and Sina celebrity blog posts have also become the content of traditional media reports.

  [...] From reality to the Internet, every tragedy has a comedic conclusion. Chinese people have experienced 30 years of enormous change in their lives; online, they have experienced 15 years of enormous change. Netizens have gone from being spectators to participants, creating the content of the Internet, and have become society’s watchdogs.

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  • October 15, 2009 3:02 PM

• China Torn over Internet Freedoms

  

  An article on Asia Times argues that China has made “enormous progress on freedom of speech,” especially on the Internet and looks at a recent debate over protection of privacy rights online:

  To a certain extent, such online freedom of speech is now being encouraged by the central leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as it is of great help for them to have first-hand understanding of public sentiment and to supervise the behavior of local officials. At the same time, the CCP imposes tough censorship on any content on the Internet that is deemed a threat to its continued rule.

  Ironically, while few of the nearly 300 million Internet users in China (or 298 million by the end of 2008) like the government’s censorship on political content on the Internet, there are growing concerns about the abuse of freedom of speech on the web. People are alarmed that there is a lack of law enforcement to deal with people who deliberately spread false information online to attack others, particularly celebrities.

  Such concerns reached a climax recently with two so-called “gate scandals” – “Bribery-gate” and “Spy-gate” – both of which involved attractive young hostesses from the state-run television channel China Central Television (CCTV).

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  • October 7, 2009 9:12 PM

• Human Flesh Search Engine Film, Part Two

  

  Danwei shares about the documentary film Human Flesh Search Engine:

  The second part of Human Flesh Search Engine, a short documentary film directed by Luis A. Tapia is now online at Vimeo and at Daedalum Films’ website.

  You’ll need a password to access the film: email info -at- daedalumfilms.com to get it. You can watch the first half of the film without a password here or here.

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  • September 26, 2009 8:07 PM

• He Weifang: Challenges to the Judiciary in the Age of the Internet

  

  ChinaGeeks translates an essay by law professor He Weifang about “the difficult relation between the power of the internet and the judiciary system”:

  First of all, administering the internet is simply not like regulating the traditional media. Every second there is a steady flow of different opinions pouring in, like a circle of life that can’t be stopped in its course. Deletion will stay an incomplete and insufficient option. Moreover, what kind of “opinion” should be deleted or not be deleted? Since adequate regulations can hardly be set beforehand, [these decisions] will be left to the obscure judgment of various departments. But different interpretations of the pronounced standards can easily lead to a severe imbalance in the amount [of information] deleted. Under the pressure of finding offences, the responsible administrators instinctively tend to be overtly strict when it comes to closing [sites], with a result that will most likely rather resemble “a massacre and slaughter of the innocent at will”.

  But wiping out valuable discourses will turn the internet – a place that should be full of vitality – into a desolate wasteland. And in such an environment the supervision of the judiciary trough the media will inevitably become a meaningless phrase. But, as stated earlier, without supervision an impartial judicature cannot exist. So in the end it will be the same restrictions imposed on the freedom of speech that were originally intended to reduce the pressure on the judiciary that will ultimately lead to an even more unjust system. You could say it “started as a nobleman, but ended like a crook”.

  The bottom line is: The root of the problem does not lie in the popular will itself, but in the lack of judiciary independence.

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  • July 18, 2009 8:59 PM

• Regulators Target Google for Pornographic Content, CCTV Airs Fake Interview, Netizens React

  

  As previously reported on CDT, Chinese government regulators have ordered Google to suspend some of its search functions due to the pornographic content available through its search engine.  More details from the New York Times:

  The Chinese government disabled some search functions on the Chinese-language Web site of Google on Friday, saying the site was linking too often to pornographic and vulgar content.

  Government officials met with managers of the Chinese operations of Google on Thursday afternoon to warn them that the company would be punished if it did not remove the offending material from the Web site, according to a report on Friday by Xinhua, the state news agency.

  [...]On Friday evening, the associative-word feature of the Web site appeared to have been disabled. That is the function that displays a drop-down menu of words related to a search word that is typed into the search engine. The previous evening, reporters on China Central Television, the state television network, showed how typing in the Chinese word for son, erzi, could pull up associated terms that have lewd connotations.

  Additionally, the government has ordered Google to block links to foreign websites from search results on its China Google page.  From the Dow Jones Newswires via Total Telecom:

  Chinese regulators have ordered Google Inc. to suspend search services for foreign Web sites via its Chinese Web site, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday, a day after the company was warned over pornographic content available through its search engine.

  It wasn’t immediately clear if the order applies to all foreign Web sites or just certain sites. Currently, foreign Web sites are still searchable and accessible from Google’s Chinese home page.

  Google was also ordered to suspend searches for certain key words when summoned by unspecified regulators Thursday afternoon, the report said.

  On June 18, CCTV aired a report on Google’s pornographic content which has drawn swift criticism from Chinese netizens, particularly for a false interview with a supposed ‘college student’ named Gao Ye.  (Watch the full CCTV segment, including the Gao Ye interview, on Sina.com.)  EastSouthNorthWest translates a post by Xiao Tian at Oxn.in (Chinese) summarizing netizen skepticism:

  On the same day, netizens began to question quickly.  Search engines frequently offer likely search terms because these are popular with other users.  As such, the search engines are not responsible because they are only reporting what users are “voting” on with their searches.  Thus, when Google.cn proposes certain relevant search terms, they are merely informing you what other netizens are most commonly searching for.  They are reflecting the facts of life, and it shows that Google.cn is being fair and objective.  Rather than blaming the search engines, we should be blaming people for wanting to look up pornography which proliferate on the Chinese Internet.

  Similarly, other search engines such as Baidu and Bing contain the same kinds of pornographic information, but CCTV completely ignores them.  Netizens made screen captures to show that Baidu is no less vulgar than Google.cn …

  

  Soon after this CCTV segment aired, the Southern Metropolis Daily (Chinese) reported that the interviewed university student Gao Ye was in fact a CCTV intern.  Netizens have launched the human flesh search engine.  Again translated by EastSouthNorthWest:

  Yesterday morning, a netizen discovered that there was a user named “Gao Ye” at the social networking site Xiaonei.  Based upon the photos, this is the same Gao Ye who appeared the day before on <Focus Interview>.  According to a conversation with a friend on June 17, Gao Ye is presently an intern with the CCTV program <Focus Interview>.  Also, other netizens found Gao Ye and his friends’ Sina.com blogs which said that he was going to become an intern at CCTV.  This information was later posted at Cat898 Forum, Tianya Form and other websites.  The reporter confirmed with a worker at CCTV’s <Focus Interview> program group that Gao Ye is indeed an intern there.

  The human flesh search quickly located and published Gao Ye’s school, QQ number, mobile phone number and other personal information.  His Xiaonei page was flooded with scornful comments.  Not satisfied with direct personal attacks, some netizens began a human flesh search on his girlfriend.  Her blog, Xiaonei page, QQ number and other information were published.  Her photos with Gao Ye were posted all over the place alongside personal attacks.

  Faced with the pressure from the powerful human flesh search, Gao Ye and his girlfriend deleted their blogs.  Gao Ye’s Xiaonei space now only has the message: “Account canceled by the user.”

  ChinaSMACK has translations of netizen reactions to the CCTV report and also a translation of a sarcastic letter to the ‘university student’ Gao Ye from Hudong Baike (Chinese):

  A Letter To Gao Ye

  Schoolmate Gao Ye, hello: You probably do not know me, but I know you from Focus Interview. I attentively listened to you talk about the “Google China using yellow pictures [pornography] and vulgar content to poison your schoolmate” thing, and was deeply touched and learned a lot. Whether or not that schoolmate is really yourself is not important, but I hope to give you some sincere advice.

  One, you must not look at pornography and vulgar content too much, Schoolmate Gao Ye. I do not know if you with your schoolmate have reached pornography and vulgar content through links on Google China, but as a big brother who has matured from youth, let me say to you that normally you must not watch too much A片 and avoid vulgar content. These are bad for your skin. These past two days, did you stay up all night going online to find 毛片 ["hand films", pornography films] look at pornography doing your homework in preparation for the CCTV interview? Look at yourself, just two days and you no longer look human: slackened eyes; wrinkles on your forward; gaping mouth. That’s why big brother is offering you a piece of advice: look at less porn and go outside more, wouldn’t that be good? Another thing, there are always at least a few girls in your classes, right? Occasionally molesting them a little is definitely more exciting than porn.

  Two, you must not accept interviews from CCTV about vulgar content, Schoolmate Gao Ye. It is not that I am jealous of you getting on CCTV, really. It is because after 60 years of studying CCTV’s programs I have discovered that every schoolmate that has gone on CCTV to interview about vulgar content always eventually has a bad fate. Let us use schoolmate Zhang Shufan from the year before last as an example. Just days before Teacher Edison Chen’s photo exhibition, CCTV’s “Xin Wen Lian Bo” broadcast “Schoolmate Zhang Shufan’s interview about pornography and vulgar content”. At the time, Schoolmate Zhang Shufan only said “very yellow, very violent” these few words, but do you know what happened to her? There were even more wretched/perverted pictures but I will not post them here. You as a good young lad currently studying in university should know what accepting this kind of interview will do for your future prospects.

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  • June 20, 2009 2:31 PM

• Eluding the Cat: Netizens on Investigative Committee Face Human Flesh Search

  

  Several prominent netizens selected by the Yunnan Provincial Publicity Department to the committee investigating Li Qiaoming’s death in detention – what has become known online as the ‘eluding the cat’ incident - have become the targets of suspicion and human flesh searches on the Tianya BBS forums.  Some forum members are questioning the netizen committee members’ independence and trustworthiness.  Others go so far as to call them members of the ’fifty-cent gang’.  From the Southern Metropolis Daily, translated by ESWN:

  The human flesh search has come up with the real identities of all the netizen representatives on the investigation team.  They all have media working experiences and backgrounds, and therefore they are regarded as people inside the system.  Some netizens have labeled them “fifty-cent gang members.”  In the virtual world of the Internet, “fifty-cent gang member” is a derogatory term for full-time or part-time commentators who speak out and lead Internet opinion while being employed and directed by the government.

  These accusations have caused doubts about the selection processes by the Yunnan province party publicity department of the investigative team members.  At the time, the Yunnan province party publicity department explained that the selection was done in two stages.  In the first stage, netizens without high name recognition on the Internet were eliminated.  In the second stage, the team members were randomly selected from the remaining names.

  [Netizen investigative leader] Tail End of the Wind [real name Zhao Li] rejected these accusations.  He told the reporter that he had left his old job [at Cailong Net, a portal for the local party newspaper Kunming Daily] many years ago.  He is presently an Internet editor for Yunnan TV Net.  Since he has not signed a labor contract yet, he does not even have a social security account number.  So he could not possibly be a member of the “system.”  He made a wager that if anyone can find out his social security account number, then that person can take all the money away.  He said that in frustration.

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  • February 24, 2009 12:36 AM

• The Real Significance of a “Human-Flesh Search Engines” for “Chen Hua”

  

  The following commentary is from overseas Chinese news site boxun.com, translated by CDT’s Lucy Lin:

  A post about the corruption situation titled, “What Kind of Communist is Mr. Chen Hua?,” circulated throughout the Internet today. While this article has essentially been removed from domestic websites, it is still circulating on foreign websites.

  The article was signed, “Zhang Tao,” which is made up by taking one character from the names of two Beijing Internet Management Department Chiefs. The article’s description of how Chen Hua is fond of alcohol and talks a lot after drinking, as well as his vehicles, properties, and bank deposits, all accord with Chen Hua’s current situation. The author should have a relatively good understanding of Chen Hua and could probably be an internal staff member of Beijing Internet Management Department or a staff member from another web company under the jurisdiction of Chen Hua, who had opportunities to be in contact with Chen Hua. The fanfare over the Beijing News Management office’s recent crackdown on vulgar content has caused hardships for a lot of Beijing websites. It’s more likely that someone from some website may be retaliating.

  It is certainly unfair for the people who are mentioned in the post that the contents of the article were not verified before its release on the Internet. However, for Chen Hua or anyone else who is part of this information-controlling, autocratic regime, this kind of method is acceptable. The Chen Hua here should not be regarded as a specific person, but rather as a spare part in China’s media control machine.

  It’s credible that no one has the power to confront a system as large as an autocratic government. However, using the current Internet platform, people can still do something about the situation by targeting specific objects within the system. For example, they can mobilize a “human-flesh search engine” for Chen Hua or other people and share their resulting information with the public.

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  • January 26, 2009 11:51 PM

• China’s ‘Netizens’ Take On the Government

  

  From Time Magazine:

  A photograph of an official from the land bureau of Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, came under scrutiny in December after it began circulating on the Internet. Netizens pointed out that Zhou Jiugeng’s imported $25,000 watch and luxury cigarettes were of a quality far exceeding what he could afford on an official’s salary. He was later dismissed.

  In a country where the media fall under tight government supervision, freelance Web investigations help fill a watchdog role the press usually cannot. Web exposés are “a general phenomenon on the Internet anywhere,” says Xiao. “What’s new in China is that because of the lack of freedom of information, the lack of free speech for ordinary citizens, ‘click-to-kill’ is particularly focused on otherwise unaccountable officials. That is unique.”

  This week, in an apparent attempt to block further online manhunts, the city of Xuzhou in Jiangsu province banned the posting of private information about government officials. But authorities may find that those who post such information don’t so easily follow orders. “This a metaphor for what the Internet is doing in China,” says Xiao. “It is precisely the very [Internet] controllers themselves now being harmed.”

  

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  • January 23, 2009 3:36 PM

• Web Posts On Officials Banned

  

  From AFP:

  Authorities in a Chinese province where Internet users exposed an allegedly corrupt official’s taste for luxury have made posting such information illegal, state media reported on Tuesday.

  The ruling Communist Party’s parliament in eastern Jiangsu province approved a law making it illegal for people in the city of Xuzhou to publish ‘private information’ on the Internet, the China Daily reported.

  The law’s approval at the annual provincial assembly underscores the increasing attention authorities are paying to blogs and Internet forums.

  Zhou Jiugeng, the head of a district housing bureau in Jiangsu’s capital, Nanjing, was dismissed last month after web users posted photos of him wearing a 100,000 yuan (S$21,968) watch and smoking 150 yuan a pack cigarettes.

  Read also Local legislation on “human flesh searches” issued by Flora Sapio.

  » Read more
  • January 19, 2009 11:30 PM

• China’s Net Users Take Aim Online

  

  USA Today looks at the phenomenon of so-called human flesh search engines:

  Vigilant Internet users spotted news photos of a housing official and posted heated online discussions about his $15,000 Swiss watch and $22-a-pack cigarettes.

  Two weeks later, Zhou Juigeng in Nanjing was fired. He is under investigation for an apparent “lavish lifestyle” that exceeds his government salary, according to the state-run China Daily.

  The case illustrates how China’s Internet users, operating in groups, can go after people they think have done something wrong by putting information about them online and allowing others to join in the harassment.

  Alice Poon at Asia Sentinel has translated a commentary by journalist Chang Ping about the “human flesh search engines”:

  In my view, human flesh search is not just a simple act of data gathering – it is also about a dissemination of information to the public, and further research and then further dissemination. In short, it is an act of media investigation. Therefore, human flesh search should follow a ‘public interest principle’ like the media. In other words, it should be respectful of personal privacy while on the other hand should also be critical about the exercise of public authority. There is an inherent common logic in both these aspects. Being critical of the ‘public’ aspect is equivalent to being respectful of the ‘private’ aspect, because the ‘public’ authority is in fact a result of concession by the ‘private’. Any abuse of power by the ‘public’ signifies an infringement on the ‘private’ right.

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  • January 8, 2009 10:46 PM

• Cyber Hunters in China in for Crash Landing

  

  From the Straits Times Singapore, via themalaysianinsider.com:

  The cyber hunters who roam China’s online space could soon become the hunted themselves. The Chinese legislature is deliberating a new law to curb the excesses of a growing trend here — the awkwardly-named “human flesh search engine”.

  The first case of cyber hunting in China is believed to be in 2001, when a netizen posted a photo of a girl online, claiming that she was his girlfriend. Other netizens found out that the beauty was computer giant Microsoft’s model Chen Ziyao and exposed the lie.

  The government wants to crack down on those Internet users who hunt down individuals online and expose details of their personal lives. The draft law says the cyber hunters and the website service providers will be held responsible if they violate the privacy of others. And if victims ask for their personal information to be deleted, the online portals must comply.

  » Read more
  • January 3, 2009 12:17 AM

• Web Site Ordered To Pay Damages To China’s First “Virtual Lynching” Victim

  

  From Xinhua:

  A Chinese Web site and a netizen were ordered by the People’s Court in Beijing Thursday to compensate the plaintiff in China’s first case on Renrou Search Engine that launched a “virtual lynching” by netizens who search for and reveal targets’ private information.

  The defendants, Daqi.com, Tianya.com and a netizen named Zhang Leyi, who established orionchris.cn, were sued by Wang Fei for posting his deceased wife’s blog. His wife, Jiang Yan, killed herself after discovering her husband was having an affair.

  The personal blog recorded the two-months preceding Jiang Yan’s suicide. The blog revealed the real name and addresses of Wang Fei, which triggered many netizens to publicly harass Wang and his family.

  » Read more
  • December 18, 2008 8:25 PM

• China Web Users Have Thirst For Scandal

  

  From the San Francisco Chronicle:

  In the YouTube era, off-the-cuff remarks can haunt American politicians again and again. But that’s nothing compared to China, where scandals draw the scrutiny of thousands of Internet vigilantes.

  With 253 million Internet users, China recently surpassed the United States with the world’s largest Web population. Many use online grassroots search engines known as renrou, or “human flesh,” to vent suspicions about alleged wrong-doers.

  Mop.com, a Chinese entertainment site, first conceived of a renrou search as a way to exchange information on restaurants, cosmetics and more. One person asks a question and others reply, much as on U.S. sites such as Yahoo! Answers or Yelp, which rely on user-generated content.

  But Chinese users soon found more excitement in exposing scandal.

  » Read more
  • December 14, 2008 12:20 AM

• China’s Virtual Vigilantes: Civic Action Or Cyber Mobs?

  

  From Christian Science Monitor:

  Some call it a weapon in the hands of a righteous army, forged so that wrongdoers might be smitten. Others say it simply allows a mob of vigilantes to publicly vilify and humiliate anyone they choose to pick on through grotesque invasions of privacy.

  Either way, the peculiarly Chinese Internet phenomenon known as the “human flesh search engine,” a citizen-driven, blog-based hunt for alleged undesirables, claimed a fresh victim this month when a mid-ranking government official lost his job.

  Accused of accosting a young girl, Lin Jiaxiang found his name, address, phone number, and workplace plastered all over Chinese cyberspace for 250 million Internet users to see, and his alleged crime the subject of hundreds of insulting blog postings.

  » Read more
  • November 26, 2008 6:57 PM

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