For some reason, James Fallows hasn’t commented on this, so I’ll pick up the ball. Last week’s New York Times Magazine had an article (also discussed on NPR’s “On The Media”) about the latest strange trend in China, the “human flesh search engine.” Whatever you thought that might refer to, it actually refers to a kind of cyber lynch mob, wherein a wrongdoer of some sort is identified in something like a viral video, and then people on message boards collaborate to find him, expose him, and ruin his life. Among the stories the article relates is of woman who, despondent over her husband’s infidelity, killed herself. Then the message board denizens took over, tracking down private information like Wang’s cell and license-plate number and calling for vengeance:
One site posted an interactive map charting the locations of everything from Wang’s house to his mistress’s family’s laundry business. “Pay attention when you walk on the street,” wrote Hypocritical Human. “If you ever meet these two, tear their skin off.”
Not that I condone adultery — much less the behavior of the woman who got targeted for a human flesh search engine after she was filmed crushing a kitten with her stilettos — but that kind of vigilantism is pretty unsettling. As the author, Tom Downey, points out, while we in America think about the Chinese Internet in terms of government censorship, there are thriving, and controversial communities outside that. “News sites and individual blogs aren’t nearly as influential in China, and social networking hasn’t really taken off. What remain most vital are the largely anonymous online forums, where human-flesh searches begin.”
So what is this about? Though my knowledge of Chinese culture is rather thin, I’d guess that in an autocratic society — just as in any society — people take what opportunities they can to exercise individual power and agency. This is what I’ve thought about all the hate mail (and occasional hate calls) I’ve gotten over the years as a progressive who writes about politics and occasionally appears on radio and television. When you get an email saying, “Hey jerk, why don’t you move back to Russia?” you have to wonder why someone took the time to lash out in that way at someone whom they happened to hear on the radio. I’ve always assumed it’s because it makes the person feel just a little bit bigger.
And if the government has shown that it isn’t going to restrain people from this kind of lynch mobbery — and that it really has an impact (people on the receiving end of human flesh search engines have lost their jobs and gone into hiding) — then it offers a way to feel like you’re a powerful force for justice, righting wrongs and giving evildoers their comeuppance. Especially in a country where political life is so constrained, the attraction of that could be powerful. Seems like it’s only a matter of time before the cyber mob turns into a real mob and kills someone. I wonder what the government will do then?
— Paul Waldman