MCLC: internet vigilantes

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: internet vigilantes
***********************************************************

Source: BBC News (1/28/14):http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25913472

China's internet vigilantes and the 'human flesh search engine'
By Celia Hatton

Last month a Chinese official in charge of internet surveillance gave
notice that mobs of web users who turn on individuals and make their lives
a misery will not be tolerated. In China it happens often and on a massive
scale, earning the phenomenon the title of the "human flesh search engine".

On Thursday 21 March 2013, the world changed for Yin Feng, a
self-described "average guy" who worked as a part-time taxi driver in the
western Chinese city of Urumqi.

Just after 14:00 his mobile phone began ringing off the hook. The callers
all berated the bewildered Yin, screaming obscenities and accusing him of
acting like an animal.

It took a while for Yin to uncover why the strangers phoning him were so
upset.

"Finally, some sensible citizens told me a story about me they heard on
the radio, or on the internet," he recalls.

Earlier that day, they told him, a driver in Urumqi had rolled down his
window to spit on an elderly homeless person lying on the street.

Witnesses recorded the first few digits of the spitter's number plate. The
information was quickly broadcast by a local radio station.

Thousands then banded together online to track down the perpetrator.

"Driver with the licence plate A36D62, you really humiliate all men,"
wrote one angry internet user. "Please forward this post and let's see
what kind of ugly face he has. Let's extinguish him. Die! Such a disgrace.
We don't even know where he's from. Get out of Urumqi."

Hours later, they zeroed in on Yin, whose number plate was a partial
match, and posted his mobile number online.

The internet vigilantes were wrong, Yin insists. He tried to defend
himself to anyone who would listen, explaining he wasn't guilty of
spitting on anyone.

But as soon as Yin hung up with one angry caller, his phone would ring
again. And again. And thousands of times again.

The case of Wang Fei

In 2008, a Beijing widower named Wang Fei found himself under attack from
the human flesh search engine. His wife had killed herself after finding
out he had been having an affair. A friend then hacked into her email and
posted her diaries online.

Within days, Wang had lost his job and had moved in with his parents to
escape angry internet users who had read the diaries. But he was followed
- mobs painted death threats on his parents' door and handed fliers with
his photo, calling him a murderer.

"I told him we could only sue websites and people with identities. Those
internet users, tens of thousands of them, we don't know who they are,"
says his lawyer, Zhang Yanfeng.

In the end, Wang successfully sued the operators of three websites for
violating his privacy and unfairly smearing his reputation.

"All of my private information was made public. My ID card number, name,
phone number, address, even my mother-in-law's phone number was dug out
and posted online," Yin remembers. "I even received phone calls
blackmailing me, threatening to burn my house down if I didn't pay them
200,000 RMB [$33,000; £20,000]."

Mr Yin was an unwitting target of what has been named China's human flesh
search engine.

At its worst, the ghoulishly named "flesh-searching" phenomenon is
cyberbullying on an epic scale, sometimes involving hundreds of thousands
of anonymous Chinese internet surfers ganging up to uncover the identity
of an unsuspecting target. Users band together to uncover a person's
identity - sometimes a suspected adulterer, sometimes an animal abuser.

The phenomenon first scored attention in 2006, when many in China began to
turn to the internet for the majority of their entertainment. The use of
internet forums exploded during that period.

One of the first notorious cases involved the search for a woman who
starred in an anonymous video using the high heel of her stiletto to crush
a kitten's skull. The woman, who turned out to be a nurse, was suspended
from her job when her identity was revealed. She received numerous death
threats and considered suicide, Chinese state television reported.

Numerous government officials have been forced to resign after their
luxurious spending habits were discovered by curious internet users”

Hundreds of similar cases followed. With 591 million users, China has the
world's largest internet population. They're also arguably the most
obsessive, picking over the smallest details in photos that capture the
public's imagination.

But at the highest levels, it seems the government is taking notice. Last
month, Liu Zhengrong, a top Communist official in charge of China's
internet surveillance, said the government believed the human flesh search
engine was "illegal and immoral". His caution was soon echoed in China's
major state media outlets - a signal, Chinese lawyers say, that
flesh-searching tactics won't be tolerated in the courts. Legislation
might soon follow.

But up until now it has been possible for anyone to find themselves in the
crosshairs of China's internet forums.

In 2009, Zhang Zetian was an ordinary high school student. One day, as she
was leaving class, a friend snapped a photo of her with a Chinese milk tea
drink in her hand, backpack slung over one shoulder. Zhang's photo was
then posted on Renren.com, a popular social networking site. Complete
strangers then forwarded the photo hundreds of thousands of times,
proclaiming the "Milk Tea Girl" to be "adorable!" and "fresh faced!".

"A newspaper reporter called me one day and suddenly I realised that
people had noticed me on the internet," Zhang explains. All her personal
details were posted online.

Years later, Zhang remains an internet celebrity. Photos of her doe-eyed
face are in regular circulation. When she was admitted into Tsinghua, one
of China's top universities, her profile rose again.

Sitting in a cafe near her campus, Zhang seems embarrassed by her unlikely
rise to celebrity status.

"No matter where I go, people attempt to take secret photos of me," she
says. People follow her with cameraphones on campus and sometimes in
class. Admirers have even tried to break into her university dormitory.

Even if laws appear on the books, Beijing might find it difficult to reign
in the public's appetite for scrutinising others”

Those who favour increased policing of the internet to stop
flesh-searching cite cases like the Milk Tea Girl as classic examples.
When so many strangers focus their attention on a single person, some
inevitably go too far.

Sceptics might point to the fact that it's in the government's interest to
rein in the practice, since the flesh-searching phenomenon has also
targeted members of the Communist Party.

The most famous case of political flesh-searching involves the "watch
uncle", a Communist official in China's central Shaanxi province who was
spotted smiling at the scene of a deadly traffic accident. Who was this
man, many wondered.

They soon discovered he was the province's health and safety chief, a man
named Yang Dacai. Some also realised that in every official photograph,
Yang was wearing a different designer watch, worth far more than he could
afford on his official salary. Days after his smiling face first snagged
attention, he found himself without a job.

Since then, watch spotting has become an internet sport and "watch uncles"
have been outed all over China. Some officials even attracted attention
when their obvious tan lines indicated they had just removed their watches
before allowing a photo to be taken.

In small ways, the human flesh search engine is forcing Communist
officials to change their behaviour.

By using the internet to police the party, citizens can train their own
government to obey the constitution, argues Wu Zuolai, a scholar with the
Chinese Academy of Arts in Beijing.

"They get criticised every day, and it will become a regular routine," he
says. "Before, leaders locked themselves up in Zhongnanhai [the government
leaders' compound], focusing their minds on how to keep the people in
sealed boxes without speaking or moving freely. I believe Xi Jinping's era
will be more open."

Even if laws appear on the books, Beijing might find it difficult to reign
in the public's appetite for scrutinising others.

The internet is notoriously hard to control, even in China, where censors
regularly delete blog posts and comments the government deems
unacceptable. Some targets of flesh-searching have already taken their
cases to court, but it's hard to blame a single perpetrator.

Months later, Yin Feng, the taxi driver, is still shaken by his ordeal. He
scans the internet regularly for mentions of his name and he watches other
flesh-searching incidents carefully. Attempts to report his experience to
the authorities have not had much effect.

Yin hopes the government will enact new laws to give ordinary folk like
him power against internet vigilantes.

"Many years have passed since the internet became so powerful," he
explains. "If other victims' personal lives are affected like mine was, at
least they'll have the law to turn to. If nothing is done, frightening
things will happen."