China's Human Flesh Search Engine 248
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times has an interesting article about Human-flesh search engines — renrou sousuo yinqing — that have become a phenomenon in China: they are a form of online vigilante justice in which Internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath. The goal is to get the targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, or run out of town. It's crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online — with offline results. 'In the United States, traditional media are still playing the key role in setting the agenda for the public,' says Jin Liwen. 'But in China, you will see that a lot of hot topics, hot news or events actually originate from online discussions.' In one well known case, when a video appeared in China of a woman stomping a cat to death with the sharp point of her high heel, the human flesh search engine tracked the kitten killer's home to the town of Luobei in Heilongjiang Province, in the far northeast, and her name — Wang Jiao — was made public, as were her phone number and her employer. 'Wang Jiao was affected a lot,' says one Luobei resident. 'She left town and went somewhere else.' The kitten-killer case didn't just provide revenge; it helped turn the human-flesh search engine into a national phenomenon. Searches have also been directed against 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."
Sounds like 4chan's Anonymous scientology raids (Score:4, Insightful)
and "Anonymous is not your personal army" seems to have held up pretty well against gaming.
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and "Anonymous is not your personal army" seems to have held up pretty well against gaming.
And do not forget the anonymous' rescue of Dusty [wowowow.com].
Subtle difference (Score:3, Insightful)
The subtle difference in these two case, is that the Chinese are genuine vigilantes - carrying the punishment themselves.
Whereas, in Dusty's case, the citizen merry helped the police finding the necessary elements, in order to let the police conduct a full investigation and the guilty abuser having a fair trial.
In one case the system is circumvented and could lead to arbitrary abuses - vigilantes attacking people doing things that they just dislike based on their own personal distastes.
In the other case a f
Sounds like a dupe/rehash from last year (Score:2)
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/10/1614227/Online-Vigilantes-Or-Crowdsourced-Justice [slashdot.org]
Why can't we all get along? (Score:2, Interesting)
... 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."...
Because we don't want too, thats why.
Re:Why can't we all get along? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the online version of denouncing people to the Thought Police in 1984. Just a reminder that China is still very much a totalitarian state.
Re:Why can't we all get along? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why can't we all get along? (Score:5, Informative)
re-read the book if you think that is a valid statement.
not really (Score:3, Insightful)
sounds pretty anti-authoritarian-mob justice to me...
totalitarian states usually want the monopoly on exacting punishments.
Re:not really (Score:5, Insightful)
Not completely - the goal is to completely brainwash people so that each accuses her or his neighbor of violations against the law. Divide et impera at its best. I come from Eastern Europe and this was practiced massively there. The motion is set by rules that control thinking and everyone stepping over whether for good or bad has her head cut off. Unfortunately, this is our innate stupidity and inconsistency as human species and many people over the ages were taking advantage of that - read Machiavelli. The clever people organize these "witch hunts" though it often backfires. Look at the French Revolution, the same ideas. Everyone is guilty of something, hence everyone can be punished in a Richelieu-an fashion.
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Not completely - the goal is to completely brainwash people so that each accuses her or his neighbor of violations against the law.
Occam's razor at work. They didn't hunt down the kitten killer because they were angry, they did it to further a big fucking secret conspiracy!
BTW, where can I join them?
Re:not really (Score:4, Informative)
Sigh. Don't lecture me about communism. I'm Hungarian, I grew up in that shit.
What you're talking about is communism, but China is socialist now. Let me explain the difference:
In communism, the ruling class has a serious paranoia, because everybody hates them, and their only power base is the military. Therefore, they do anything they feel necessary to stay in power, including propaganda, mass executions, secret police, you name it. China was like that when Mao ran the show. It wasn't pretty.
In socialism, the propaganda is the same, although toned down because nobody fights it anymore. It's taken for granted. The ruling class also secured their power a long time ago, so they're more relaxed about it as well. All they need to keep their power is to run the country like they promised, and people will be content with that. China is the most successful country in the world right now, who could possibly step up and believably claim they could do a better job in power?
They don't need to harass their own people anymore, just the ones who are actively creating unrest. People in socialism don't care about politics: they know it's pointless. What they do care about is that now they can get a job they can be confident will last them until retirement, because the state provides it.
If you want to know more, read up on Mátyás Rákosi (communism) [wikipedia.org], János Kádár (socialism) [wikipedia.org], and Géza Hofi (criticism done right in the absence of freedom of the press) [wikipedia.org].
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What you are describing as "communism" is actually "military communism", a completely different (and always temporary) social system.
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sounds pretty anti-authoritarian-mob justice to me...
or authoritarian mob justice
totalitarian states usually want the monopoly on exacting punishments.
Clearly you've never heard of the Basij [wikipedia.org], or any of the many other "patriotic" volunteer groups. When you have groups brought up in your ideology, whatever that ideology is, you're going to have large segments of that society (the conservative segments that is) to support that ideology because their natural tendency to support the status quo, support the hierarchy, support the nation, (i.e. patriotism and the fear of the other)
Actually this sounds quite a bit like, Texas's own,Re [littlegreenfootballs.com]
Re:Why can't we all get along? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hyperbole much? /b/tards. Bord teens to 30 somethings, who still live with their parents, as is the norm in China, going after very VERY soft targets.
This is nothing but Chinese
Nationalism is a disease not at all unique to China.
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Ministry of misuse and overuse of Orwell's novels.
Just fucking google it ! (Score:2)
It's just more apparent since we can see it online.
...and more searchable.
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"To organize the world's stupidity, and make it universally accessible and useful."
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Not exactly. This appears not to be an action of the Chinese government but of its citizens. The attacks on 'unpatriotic' people are probably unintended side-effects of government propaganda, just as right-wing 'patriots' in the US killing people is an unintended side-effect of Fox News. I think you can be damn sure the Chinese government has no desire to kick off another cultural revolution.
This just makes it more scary in a way.
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Another unintended effect of Fox News, is left-wing 'bleeding-hearts' assuming all those right-wing 'patriots' are influenced by Fox News.
This made me wonder who is buried in Grant's Tomb.
Re:Why can't we all get along? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then so is the UK (making the assumption you're from there based on username) which has its fair share of witch hunts organized by the tabloids (Jade Goody, the anti-vaccination insanity, the pediatrician assaulted by confused pedophile hunters, etc...) In fact it might be more totalitarian since the Chinese incidents aren't guided by a central authority like the UK ones but are grass roots initiatives.
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Yes, and? Saying all the ways that the UK or wherever is bad too doesn't excuse this.
Not at all, it just bugs me when people ignore the beam in their own eye. Change yourself, change the world.
What a selective quote (Score:3, Interesting)
Odd that you just happen to leave out the corrupt goverment employees being hunted. Showing that this is a citizens effort, not a government one.
In the west, we the people just let the bankers get away with the hardship they caused. Like in Iceland. Not one of the bankers has been arrested.
No, this has nothing to do with dicatorship. And americans love this idea, it is the basis of the superhero.
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There really needs to be an Orwell Corollary to the Godwin Law, because deserved or not, the references are really getting out of hand lately.
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No, this isn't the state doing it.. it's people.. and it doesn't require a totalitarian state.. it could happen anywhere where there is a large crowd of bored people (aka; internet users.. it's ok.. i'm one of them).
Between the recent wave of location-aware apps and privacy concerns of places like Facebook, this will only get more common. Next thing you know we'll have people just jumping others they don't like (race,creed, sexuality preferences, so on) and other commiting location-aware crimes [pleaserobme.com].
Re:dude (Score:5, Insightful)
1984, orwell, big brother: it would all make sense if the state had a monopoly on technological advance. it doesn't. as such, 1984, orwell, big brother: failed, dead meme, useless way of thinking about your world.
Thanks. Here I was thinking that 1984 was a commentary on the human condition. I completely missed the point that unless all the conditions and technology were exactly the same, my world and Orwell's world had zero in common.
I guess I can discrd all the insights into human behaviours in the Iliad and the Odyssey because people don't carry swords anymore.
And my copy of Herodotus is right out.
do you treat the iliad and odyssey (Score:3, Insightful)
as religious fundamentalist documents that color your every impression of what happens in your society and are you obsessed with cramming every development in society into the mold of what happens in those stories?
if no, then you completely understand my point, and your sarcasm is off target
because there really are people posting here, and that you meet in real life, who think of orwell as some sort of religious prophet about the coming armageddeon. that every sign and signal and portent of news from real l
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because there really are people posting here, and that you meet in real life, who think of orwell as some sort of religious prophet about the coming armageddeon. that every sign and signal and portent of news from real life is merely evidence of the coming state of big brother and 1984 as reality. the same as any other idiotic apocalyptic cult
Depends on how you define a meme. I have never met anyone who thought 1984 was an actual and incarnate equivalent to the Book of Revelation. I suppose there are such people, but I don't think they are the majority. And it is the majority who define a meme, unless you have a different understanding of the word.
i guess you haven't been reading slashdot comments (Score:2)
as often as i have
every single story remotely concerning social trends or government policy like this story, some moron has to cite orwell
and look at the top level comment we are posting under: this little brother style of vigiliantism here is obviously the OPPOSITE of what orwell imagined, but the idiot still has to cite orwell AND he gets modded up as insightful
so its obviously not the majority as you say, but this 1984 derivative stupidity does have a lot of resonance nonetheless
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I'd say that 1984 is a valid comparison for what Sovjet Russia was under Stalin and what North Korea is today.
But I totally agree with you that the comparison it is overused.
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Wow, and you critisize others for not understanding Orwell?
As Christopher Hitchens has pointed out Orwell was the only intellectual writer in the first half of the 20th century to correctly identify and attack all three of the major ideological diseases of the 20th century, Imperialisim, Co
you're just like (Score:2)
any other religious evangelist
i'm not interested in your retarded religion of orwell
he was a good writer. he wrote good stories. i especially enjoyed animal farm
i also read the bible. it had some good stories, also a lot of violence. that is the beginning and ending of my intersection of christianity
what i do is i accumulate wisdom from many different sources of enthusiasm and enlightenment in the world. what i don't do is latch onto one particular work or another as the end all be all story of everything
i
i live in a democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
it is imperfect
but it is clearly ideologically superior to societies that are not democratic, at least according to me, not you apparently
there are limits on my freedom in a democracy. some are stupid, and i fight them, some limits are natural and i accept them. but i would like to know why these limits are in any way comparable to the limits on someone's freedom living in north korea or cuba
i call them totalitarian societies. you say there are no totalitarian socities. i would like you to tell me how the rulers of cuba, iran, north korea, or china came to power. i would like you to tell me how barack obama or gordon brown came to power. and finally i would like to know according to what amazing logic you equivocate these two (very different) paths to power
xenophobia is an interesting topic. i would like to know what the hell that has to do with totalitarianism in your mind. all societies are xenophobic to some degree or another. and it seems to me, that the more totalitarian a society, the more the xenophobia. you apparently see nothing but the same totalitarianism and xenophobia everywhere
frankly, you're a fucking moron
the usa HAS strong protection for minority rights (Score:3, Insightful)
and democracy is obviously not the same as mob rule
and democracy is obviously superior to totalitarianism, autocracy, military juntas, theocracies, monarchies, etc. democracy is not perfect. its simply BETTER than all other alternatives
everyone in the world deserves the rights and freedoms and self-determination of living in a democracy
do you not agree with that?
4Chan (Score:4, Insightful)
This is 4Chan made in China.... or dare I say ChinChan...
Re:4Chan (Score:5, Interesting)
The difference being the Chinese are motivated by a sense of moral justice (at least on the surface) instead of a nihilistic quest for lulz. Frankly I like the 4chan way better, seems more honest.
It's also interesting that similar behavior has spontaneously developed in 2 parts of the world with a very different culture, it may indicate the way future internet-centric societies will further develop. Oh dear god IS "4chan the Future of Human Consciousness?" [hplusmagazine.com]
Re:4Chan (Score:5, Informative)
The difference being the Chinese are motivated by a sense of moral justice (at least on the surface) instead of a nihilistic quest for lulz. Frankly I like the 4chan way better, seems more honest.
They are also motivated by their love for cats.
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The difference being the Chinese are motivated by a sense of moral justice (at least on the surface) instead of a nihilistic quest for lulz.
So the Church of the Subgenius really is the enlightened path?
I could be completely wrong, but in spite of the fact that channers go after folks for everything from being of the wrong religion (if you can call Scientology a religion) to wearing an animal suit during sex or yes, even killing kittens, I can't remember hearing about them going after someone for being unpatriotic. Then again, this is probably just me being a hypocritical, undeserving westerner.
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You know, reading this story completely made my morning a lot happier. In America, the idea that cats are treated horribly in China (if not eaten, as well) is almost a meme, despite the fact that cats are generally loved and treated quite well elsewhere in China's neighborhood (Taiwan, Japan, etc). Reading about Chinese public outrage over a cat's horrific death is absolutely heartwarming.
Fun fact: the Chinese character for 'cat' is written as the radical for 'animal' (literally, 'beast with claws') next to
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This is 4Chan made in China.... or dare I say ChinChan...
I think that'd be SiChan [bellaonline.com].
I don't know of any dialect where the number 4 translates to "Chin". Unless you are counting the chins on a really fat person....
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2chan.net (Score:2)
4Chan is just the English phenomenon of 2chan.
It's a Japanese channel, but lots of Chinese on the front page.
As far as I know, the concept originated in East Asia.
The Human Flesh Search Engine (Score:4, Insightful)
Also known as Mature Bullying
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Or "vigilantism"
I wonder if.. (Score:2, Insightful)
God bless America (Score:2, Funny)
At least over here the internet mob justice is willing to affirm that it's not anyone's personal army.
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They are the exact opposite of "not your personal army" and they'll report anybody who mentions "mudkips" to be child pornographers.
But who verified it was really her?! (Score:5, Insightful)
While the public might be a good detective, it certainly is a bad judge. Given the current technology (need I say photoshop?) a picture or a video can be faked by e.g. a malicious stalker who is after destroying a persons reputation. Posting the results of such a witch hunt without the accused having the possibility to respond to the accusation and defend hirself violates a basic human right.
Re:But who verified it was really her?! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's discussed in TFA: a corrupt local official was hunted down for attempting to pull a small girl into a bathroom, actual eyewitnesses were not sure the situation was so clear cut. The whole reason we have courts is because mob "justice" is rarely that.
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a corrupt local official was hunted down for attempting to pull a small girl into a bathroom
Is that physically pull (like in grab her arm, and forcefully pull her in, while she's shouting and screaming) or just statutory pulling (nicely asking her whether she wants to have some fun, please join me in my stall)?
Re:But who verified it was really her?! (Score:4, Informative)
Where in the article does it say that the government official was taking the girl to a bathroom? The person who dubbed the video assumed that he was doing this, though the staff at the restaurant thought different. Section reprinted below:
THE PLUM GARDEN Seafood Restaurant stands on a six-lane road that cuts through Shenzhen, a fishing village turned factory boomtown. It has a subterranean dining room with hundreds of orange-covered seats, an open kitchen to one side and a warren of small private rooms to the other. Late on a Friday night in October 2008, a security camera captured a scene that was soon replayed all over the Chinese Internet and sparked a human-flesh search against a government official.
In the video clip, an older man crosses the background with a little girl. Later the girl runs back through the frame and returns with her father, mother and brother. The subtitles tell us that the old man had tried to force the girl into the men’s room, presumably to molest her, and that her father is trying to find the man who did that. Then the girl’s father appears in front of the camera, arguing with that man.
There is no sound on the video, so you have to rely on the Chinese subtitles, which seem to have been posted with the video. According to those subtitles, the older man tells the father of the girl: “I did it, so what? How much money do you want? Name your price.” He gestures violently and continues: “Do you know who I am? I am from the Ministry of Transportation in Beijing. I have the same level as the mayor of your city. So what if I grabbed the neck of a small child? If you dare challenge me, just wait and see how I will deal with you.” He moves to leave but is blocked by restaurant employees and the girl’s father. The group exits frame left.
...
While Netizens saw this as a struggle between an arrogant official and a victimized family of common people, the staff members at Plum Garden, when I spoke to them, had a different take. First, they weren’t sure that Lin had been trying to molest the girl. Perhaps, they thought, he was just drunk. The floor director, Zhang Cai Yao, told me, “Maybe the government official just patted the girl on the head and tried to say, ‘Thank you, you’re a nice girl.’ ” Zhang saw the struggle between Lin and the family as a kind of conflict she witnessed all too often. “It was a fight between rich people and officials,” she says. “The official said something irritating to her parents, who are very rich.”
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>>While the public might be a good detective, it certainly is a bad judge.
Indeed. The whole Chinabounder fiasco is a good example of how witch hunts can go bad.
Essentially, Chinaboundder (an English guy) kept a blog about the Chinese women he slept with (all of age, consensual, etc.) A Chinese professor called out a witch hunt on him (I guess what the OP is calling a flesh search engine) and he had to go into hiding.
Because in China, you see, you don't talk about the women you sleep with. It's perfect
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Re:But who verified it was really her?! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but personally I don't think it's a terribly good example, for several reasons.
1) First of all, I myself think that chinabounders behaviour is in bad taste. Now I wouldn't go after him in any way, but It doesn't exactly make me feel sympathetic towards him either.
2) He put it online himself. He basically told the entire world what he was doing, knowing fully well that somebody could take an issue with it. The internet is not your safe haven where you can do anything you like without consequences, at least not if you don't even attempt to remain anonymous. (ok, I don't know the details of this case, but that is what it sounds like to me).
Of course it is still wrong for the witch hunters to do anything *illegal* to chinabounder - but if he tells the entire world what he is doing, he should not be surprised if somebody gets offended and "retaliates" in a *legal* manner.
If the witch hunters do illegal things (aka crime), then that is not a problem with the idea of a witch hunt, but those criminal persons need to be jailed.
Re:But who verified it was really her?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but in court you have to provide evidence. And you can refute that evidence. So it becomes rational. Groupthink is not rational. And very very dangerous. And you can't remove the 100 people who are outliers (people who would be taken off a jury because they are prejudiced). Those might be the people who use the information to harass someone they don't like.
For instance, what if a group decided to "out" all the gay people in a town? They'd start their investigations and post the names online. That's wrong in and of itself. But an outlier might then decide to use that information for violence.
And that's why we have a judicial system.
Re:But who verified it was really her?! (Score:4, Funny)
Groupthink is not rational.
Right, and that's why we have Jury System.
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That is the trick though. A jury and a justice system can (or at least should) only be able to punish you once. Granted we try to circumvent this by making one offense 12 different crimes (possession of drugs, possession of drugs with intent to distribute, distribution of drugs, distribution of drugs near a school, drugs near a church, near a child, owning a gun while possessing drugs, owning a gun while distributing drugs, possessing drugs without a state sanctioned drug distribution stamp, possessing drug
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Yes, but in court you have to provide evidence. And you can refute that evidence. So it becomes rational.
You are right, but what elFisico's talking about happens anyway. How many people do we see get in trouble for "child porn" and have their names and faces plastered all over the news before any decision has been made? You can bet even if they are 100% innocent, their lives have been ruined for the next 10 or 20 years.
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How many people do we see get in trouble for "child porn" and have their names and faces plastered all over the news before any decision has been made?
I gather it's not that many, but that may be observer bias on my part (I don't go looking for news on sexual offenders or other notorious witch-hunt categories). I don't read of child porn consumers getting arrested all the time. A mob tens of millions in number, with no standard of evidence required or accountability, could "find" and punish a bunch of orders of magnitude more people than that.
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What? (Score:4, Funny)
This thing should be banned immediately
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modern mass gathering (Score:4, Insightful)
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The irony of this post appearing on Slashdot... it's almost too much.
Cultural Revolution 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because "bad" isn't limited to what's illegal, but is anything that someone doesn't like? (RTFS for examples.)
Because of the whole, you know, fair trial and innocent until proven guilty thing?
Because it shouldn't be up to individuals to apply justice - otherwise, shouldn't they in turn be subject to the same humiliation, for doing this to other people?
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It depends on the "dispicable" action in question. If its gay sex, I fail to see what right the mob has to attempt to humiliate someone because they decide its "despicable."
Because good intentions can become witch hunts (Score:3, Informative)
Oblig. Simpsons (Score:2, Funny)
Skinner: Oh, there's no justice like angry-mob justice.
Lenny: I'm gonna burn all the historic memorabilia.
Moe: I'm gonna take me home a toilet.
Willy: Well, there'd better be two.
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/4F06.html
Coming soon... (Score:3, Funny)
"She's a witch!!"
It's called a lynch mob.... (Score:3, Insightful)
...and it's nothing new, even if the tools and techniques are modern.
ever onwards back in time (Score:2)
Well, things are progressing, as age-old human desires and idiosyncracies get adapted and ridden along modern technologies. Really nothing new and yet still astounding.
However, it'll get a lot more interesting, when there's an economic incentive for tracking down people and performing certain....actions: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Assassination_politics [wikimedia.org]
Given the degree to which people are conditioned to respond in Pavlov'ian fashion for gaining a material benefit the old and formerly phi
This is ancient (Score:3, Informative)
Nothing new in concept here, although the implementation is updated :-), The Chinese have been using similar systems of group responsibility as far back as the Qin dynasty (200BC or so). Bao Jia is a later (~1000AD) derivation that might be considered related to what's going on here too (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baojia_system)
And what's more interesting (Score:2)
Is that the lynch mob went after someone killing a kitten. That's new certainly something new and implies that the west's cultural obsessions with animal welfare and cuteness are taking hold.
History running in circles (Score:2)
We've got all these technological advances, all these wonderful new toys, but all we can do is reinvent the frigging lynch mob.
This isn't unique. (Score:2)
How is this any different from collaborative e-stalking?
This has been done before, at least here in the US. The most recent example I can recall was one woman being accused of "threatening" to murder her ex-boyfriend using mortuary lab equipment (article here [slashdot.org]), when the sole evidence for this accusation was from a Facebook status update. Additionally, while China has their "BBS"es, we have Facebook, which is essentially human flesh-search made (sort of) easy. This would have catalyzed the manhunt against th
This should be spammer enforcement (Score:2)
One of the problem with spam laws is that the enforcement of laws is so weak compared to the number of people spammers make miserable and the time and resources they steal--o boo, hoo, they declared bankruptcy and had to serve two years in prison. What really needs to happen to high-profile spammers is that they need to be dragged from the courtroom where they have been found guilty and then dragged to their deaths before cheering, spitting mobs and film crews. Maybe display the corpses in gibbets outside
Example of usage by Chinese ultranationalists (Score:3, Informative)
After the March 2008 Tibetan uprising across the three provinces of Chinese-occupied Tibet during which a few Chinese (both uniformed and settlers) were killed and a dozen more died while hiding when Chinese-owned shops were set alight and over two hundred Tibetans were killed by the Chinese army and paramilitary and over two thousand Tibetans simply went missing (dead or kept in horrendous secret prison camps) there were demonstrations across the world featuring mostly freedom-supporting foreign nationals and occasionally angry Chinese Communist Party-organized "fen qing" [wikipedia.org] defending Chinese imperialism and colonialism in Tibet.
During one rare demonstration at the Duke University featuring both sets of campaigners, a young Chinese student Grace Wang, who also had Tibetan and Western friends and who had mastered the art of respectful debate, tried in vain to mediate between the two groups of protesters. Here is a quote from the Washington Post article ("Caught in the Middle, Called a Traitor") on what happened next [washingtonpost.com]:
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Wow, such anger! It's not like she said she was ashamed Bush was from Texas or anything! Geez!
i've seen that video (Score:3, Informative)
what's impressive to me is that even in china, where they pretty much eat anything "everything with 4 legs except the table" they are repulsed by simple cruelty
in other words, animal rights activists: there is a code, understandable by all meat eaters, that eating meat is not cruelty, its simple sustenance. meanwhile, the divide between that understanding, and the simple understanding that needless cruelty to animals is disgusting is stark, clear, and universally understood. common chinese repulsion to that video, the same people famous for eating dogs, civet cats, whatever, they are equally repulsed at that video as your average morrisey listening mopey animal rights activist in the west
animal rights activists: people are repulsed by cruelty, universally and fundamentally, and they understand the difference between the need for sustenance and unnecessary vile behavior. and they genuinely are two different things. sorry: meat is not murder
and frankly, hound that fucking bitch and the cameraman too
if you've seen that video, even the most law and order obsessed amongst us would be grabbing the pitchfork and letting out a throaty cry for some mob vigilante justice on that bitch
It's been done in the U.S. (Score:2)
WTF? (Score:2)
Let's for the moment ignore the question of why someone would stomp a cat to death with high heels, gloss right over the question of why someone would film themselves stomping a cat to death with high heels, and head right into the most salient question:
Why would someone who filmed themselves stomping a cat to death with high heels put the video on the web?
Seriously, WTF is going through these people's heads. What did she think was going to happen? "YouTube.cn Featured Video of the Day!" or something?
Topix (Score:2)
Anyone who still believes in the myth of southern hospitality needs to visit the Topix message board for any town, large or small, in the south.
Its something good. Get over it. (Score:2)
and cut hypocritical elitist crap like 'mob justice' and so on. this is direct democracy at work : people brought the case into the light, people provided evidence for it, people judged it, people executed the judgment. this is the way democracy was supposed to be.
but instead of this, we have 'representatives of the representatives of the representatives to the power of n' system in politics. you elect someone who has been able to secure enough funds and connections to get into public through privately owne
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No, this isn't democracy. This is a bunch of people deciding something and going ahead with it whether or not anyone else agrees with them. It's no more a democratic than a lynch mob. Sorry, I'm not going to support a system that forces people into hiding just because a bunch of bullies don't agree with what they said.
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and what is different in between an aristocratic system and a representative democracy ?
in the first, a small mob rules them all. in the latter, a bigger mob.
in direct democracy, mob is the biggest. so, it IS democracy.
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you think rushing to judgment doesnt happen in legal process ?
in countries which dont employ jury systems, the judge rushes to decisions because there are heaps of cases waiting to be handled.
in countries which employ jury systems, juries rush to decisions because they have their own businesses to deal with and cant spend weeks or months or years on end in courtrooms.
in any country, judicial system is limited with whatever expert can be hustled in to court, or whichever witness can be found.
in such a system
Good and bad (Score:2)
This is only as good or bad as the people whose morality is enforced.
Stomping a cat to death with high heels - I'd probably do a lot more than run someone out of town for that... pornography, I'd do nothing whatsoever.
Re:Mob rule? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like mob rule to me.
Well, as H.L. Mencken once said - the purist form of democracy is the lynch mob. True enough. Ironic that China should be criticized for becoming too democratic.
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You don't even need a plurality to lynch someone.
What we're seeing here isn't really all that surprising. Public response not mediated by the traditional media? That's a direct result of not having a free press. Vigilantism? That's a direct result of people feeling that the rules don't secure them from a threat.
Lynch mobs are all about people taking matters into their own hands when the government can't. In the US, local authorities often turned a blind eye to lynchings because they were in sympathy
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Exactly.
It's the difference between what the government is supposed to do and what officials *want* to be done that encourages vigilantes.
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Somebody post a youtube link of why republic are better than democracy...
too lazy to do it again...
Re:Mob rule? (Score:4, Interesting)
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You mean, in US everything IS your personal army?
That's actually a valid explanation why all American political movements are such an epic fail since the end of Civil Rights/racial equality movement (that was a personal army, too, but for a way too huge number of people).
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Do you by any chance work for FoxNews? Stating that you know what "it really is", then rapidly retreating to "I wouldn't be surprised..."