The End of Mob Rule on the Internet in China? Hardly

Posted on September 3, 2008
Filed Under China Internet, China Law, Security |

THE “Human flesh search engine” - the idea of mobilizing thousands of individuals to dig out facts and expose them publicly - may no longer be a fun game to play as a draft amendment now bans government staff from seeking and publicizing private information.

Several high profile scandals in China had seen the online vigilantes of the “human flesh search engine” engaging in what amounted to cyber lynchings of individuals and their reputations.

In the draft amendment submitted to the country’s top legislature last week, government staff face from one to six months in a detention center or three years’ in jail for the most serious cases.

“The amendment has focused on individual interests, which is a big change and a giant step forward in protecting personal information,” said Liu Renwen, professor of law at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

…The existing law only bans staff in the post office from hiding, or dumping mail and telegrams.

The new amendment extends the scope of the application and is a positive move to meet the demands of citizens in an evolving society, said Li Han, a law graduate from Beijing Normal University.

The “human flesh search engines” (sadly not as naughty as it sounds) are self-appointed judges, juries and executioners of their victims. Their targets are people, usually seen on the internet, who have done something objectionable, or have displayed extraordinary insensitivity, or are deemed to have done something vaguely anti-Chinese or anti-China.

In BBSs and forums they post all the information they can find about the victim. Generally they find out quite a bit: where someone works, lives, their telephone number, email, etc., etc. Then they hound and harass the unfortunate.

It’s an interesting internet phenomena, a shared vehicle for retribution. Not only do its participants bring justice to the unjust, it’s a collaborative, mutually affirming process. And it works, victims have gone into hiding because of it. It’s a heady, addictive brew. No wonder it caught the government’s attention.

The law that is under consideration (at least how Shanghai Daily describes it), has little to do with the vigilantes. It’s designed to punish government employees who reveal private data. This may be some kind of indicator of the participation of those government employees in human flesh search engining, but no one really knows.

But the law will do little to control the compilation of data by private companies. The article gave an example of a woman who felt harassed by a gym where she registered, but didn’t join. The law will do nothing to help her.

Nor will the law do anything to stop the theft and commercialization of data. Poorly secured data in hospitals has been stolen and government databases have been hacked.

In China’s rush to be e-everything or i-marketed mountains of data have been formed. They are poorly secured (if at all) and their are no guidelines on the management and retention of that data. It’s ripe for abuse, either by the online mob or data-mining companies.

The same personal data management problem can be found, to varying degrees, everywhere. What’s interesting is that the human flesh search engines seem to be a uniquely Chinese experience, at least in their virulence and prevalence. The government has made a small step to securing private data, but it is missing the larger point: vigilantism is a response to a perceived gap in meting out justice. Personal privacy considerations aside, this is a symptom of a bigger social issue.

I wonder what the government is going to do about that?