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Mob Rule on China's Internet

Posted by Zonk on Thu Jun 01, 2006 05:09 PM
from the now-that's-web-2.0 dept.
The Internet
Alien54 writes to mention an International Herald Tribune article about the growing phenomenon in China known as internet hunting; Using the web to track down individuals who have violated social more or broken the law. From the article: "In recent cases, people have scrutinized husbands suspected of cheating on their wives, fraud on Internet auction sites, the secret lives of celebrities and unsolved crimes. One case that drew a huge following involved the poisoning of a Tsinghua University student - an event that dates to 1994, but was revived by curious strangers after word spread on the Internet that the only suspect in the case had been questioned and released. Even a recent scandal involving a top Chinese computer scientist dismissed for copying an American processor design came to light in part because of Internet hunting, with scores of online commentators raising questions about the project and putting pressure on the scientist's sponsors to look into allegations about intellectual property theft."
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  • Is this what happens... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ericspinder (146776) on Thursday June 01 2006, @05:11PM (#15449158) Journal
    Is this what happens when you keep people from looking at porn all day? Perhaps it represents the amount of time that intelligent people 'waste' discussing politics.\ Or has the Internet awoken community interest, and those discussions are just the first steps to a more open society.

    • Re:Is this what happens... (Score:4, Informative)

      by packetmon (977047) on Thursday June 01 2006, @05:35PM (#15449309) Homepage
      A more open society, or a more open social network online? ... I wonder if some of these articles aren't just fantastic stories created by someone that made a cluster of pissed off Chinese want to go Kung Fu someone's ass. Anyhow, I was just reading about cyberpsychology which is interesting... (off topic... yup) Do we communicate more openly and honestly in cyberspace, or are we more apt to hide our true feelings and personalities? How accurate are our beliefs about how others see us can we effectively view ourselves through other peoples eyes? This chapter will explore ways that social perception in cyberspace can be better understood by applying psychological principles, research, and theory. There are three major sections. The first is an examination of the nature of computer-mediated communication CMC as viewed by several prominent theoretical models, outlining how these models assess possible sources of accurate and inaccurate perceptions online and the impact of perceptions in cyberspace on everyday face-to-face social relationships. Next, the chapter explores the role of relevant cognitive processes in the development of online perceptions, including the activation of stereotypes, self-confirmation of attributions, and the instantiation of social identity. The final section examines the problem of accurately knowing how others perceive oneself in cyberspace versus in face-to-face interactions. http://www.vepsy.com/communication/volume2.html [vepsy.com]

  • WikiJudge? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ajs (35943) <ajs.ajs@com> on Thursday June 01 2006, @05:13PM (#15449176) Homepage Journal
    I can just see it... "today, a man was sentenced to death after a jury of his p33rz found that he was 'fscked up.'"

    • Re:WikiJudge? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Kesch (943326) on Thursday June 01 2006, @05:59PM (#15449470)
      1st they came for the n00bs
      and I did not spe4k out
      because I am ub3r.

      Then they came for the f4gs
      and I did not spe4k out
      I'm no f4g.

      Then they came for the h4xx0rs
      and I did not spe4k out
      because I dont need h4xx0rs, I have 1337 skillz.

      Then they came for me
      and there was no one left
      excpet for us h4rdc0res who went and raided Molten Core all day happily ever after.
    • Where "fscked up" means not visiting 4chan often enough... *chuckle*..

  • Well.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Otter (3800) on Thursday June 01 2006, @05:16PM (#15449200) Journal
    Others denounced the university for not expelling him, with one poster saying it should be "bombed by Iranian missiles." Many others, meanwhile, said the student should be beaten or beheaded, or that he and the married woman should be put in a "pig cage" and drowned.
    Well, they definitely sound ready for blogging! Too bad the story says the government has just blocked Technorati.

    Actually, the most interesting bit in there was about the plagiarism case. Too bad they didn't provide more detail -- I hadn't heard about that angle before.

  • Just like a jury of your peers! (Score:5, Funny)

    by nickgrieve (87668) on Thursday June 01 2006, @05:18PM (#15449209) Journal
    What could possibly go wrong? Because you know, everything you read on the internet is true.

  • Wait... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ObjetDart (700355) on Thursday June 01 2006, @05:23PM (#15449240)
    So let me get this straight... China has some kind of anarchic version of the internet, where users post whatever they want, and are free to band together to form loose coalitions organized around common interests?

    Where can we get one of those?

  • There is often discussion here about how the Chinese people are oppressed by their government and that we need to take steps to give them technology to route around censorship and to eventually topple their totalitarian government. Now, I'm getting the impression that they're a bunch of busy bodies and snitches that have exactly the government that they want.
  • Isn't China ruled by Communists? When did the Mob started ruling China? Why haven't America liberated China yet? Inquiring minds want to know...
  • Mob metality at it's worst. This type of thing goes too far where we are letting the mob dictate morality
  • From the article, the husband's nick is Freezing Blade (I bet his 'blade' isn't getting any warmer, hehe), the cheating student goes by Bronze Mustache (Anyone else picturing a Chinese version of most 70's porn stars?) and the wife is Quiet Moon (Too... Many... Jokes...) . Sounds like the cast of an adult anime. ;-)

  • This is an example of why ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Daniel Dvorkin (106857) * on Thursday June 01 2006, @05:31PM (#15449287) Homepage Journal
    ... vigilantism is a bad idea.

    You hear calls for vigilante activity a lot, on the net and in the real world. And it's got lots of emotional appeal. But it always turns into mob rule, with absolutely no mechanism for protecting the innocent.

    • it always turns into mob rule, with absolutely no mechanism for protecting the innocent

      Well, if you're rich, you can just hire private security (or the police) to hang around and keep the wankers away from your front door.

      If you're not so rich, in most countries you can ask for police protection (and get it for free) until things blow over.

      Since this is China, I'm not so sure if this guy & his family can get police protection just by asking. Maybe someone living/lived in China can resolve that.

      • Since this is China, I'm not so sure if this guy & his family can get police protection just by asking

        Only if you're holding out a bag of money and smiling at the same time...

        I live in southern China - A few months ago, I looked out the window of my 9th floor apartment and happened to notice a Shenzhen Police paddy wagon parked across the street, out front of a real estate company my GF used to work for - she SMS'S to say she has to work late, as one of the other employees was arrested, and everyo
  • QFA:"Let's use our keyboard and mouse in our hands as weapons". Obviously the repressive Communist rule won't let the common people even get their hands on real weapons.
  • Oh great. Now we are going to be bombarded with amazing stories about everyday stuff simply because they involve THE INTERNET! In CHINA!

    Woo.

    Can't we go back to the 'old people in Korea' jokes?
  • Being married to a Chinese national and having just come back from China I'll weigh in with a few observations. Social obligation is considered very high, but not in a legal sense. The cultural revolution of the seventies and even the Communist party of today placed/places a high value on public self recrimination as a means to redemption. Pointing out the flaws in others has been a way of deflecting unwanted attention to ones self in China for decades. I won't go into details about the personal lives of some of my wife's friends, but based on what she tells me adultery and divorce are becoming as common in China as they are in America. Violent crime may be much lower but all other forms of crime abound.

    This new internet activism is probably a reaction to the commonly held belief that social mores are going to hell in a hand basket. My wife, an agnostic like myself, wonders if there is some value in most people having Religion in order to hold the more selfish, destructive behaviors in check. It would sadden me if this is the case, but as the Chinese government lessens its control of its citizenry and with the majority having no clear religion, there has been a corresponding rise in what most consider immoral behavior, and thus the current backlash.

    Now whether the new behavior is truly immoral is a separate question, and as an agnostic one I have no firm answer for.

    • Re:No clear voice of Moral Authority (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If history has taught us anything, it's that it's the individual, not their religion religion (or lack there of), who ultimately chooses to do good or bad. If they happen to be religious and also a bad person, they will use their religion to justify their actions. (Like what happened with The Crusades for Christians, or more recently 9/11 for Muslims.) Religion has never been something that makes someone moral or immoral. The majority of people in the U.S. say that they are Christian, but that hardly means
    • Religion may help to keep selfish behaviour in check. But, I cannot see religion as an antidote for mob mentality. In fact, we can see many notorious mobs in history are linked closely to fringe religious group. I think the root of the mob mentality is the belief that "I know the truth" (or even "I am the truth") and try to impose that upon the other. Mutual respect and acceptance to difference may probably the key....

    • Re:No clear voice of Moral Authority (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Jherek Carnelian (831679) on Thursday June 01 2006, @06:43PM (#15449734)
      My wife, an agnostic like myself, wonders if there is some value in most people having Religion in order to hold the more selfish, destructive behaviors in check.

      George Washington thought so, in his Farewell Address he said:

      Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
      It is pretty well established that Washington himself was at least a Deist, if not agnostic to the point of soft atheism.

      (As an aside, here is something very interesting - as I was looking for the exact quote to cut-n-paste into this message, I ran across an article by Michael Novak slamming the ACLU and attempting to justify it with the above quotation from George Washington. Except, Novak misquoted Washington [nationalreview.com] in a fashion that hides Washington's clearly judgemental opinion of the type of people who 'need' religion.)

    • There is a segment of the population for whom religion creates an anchor to which they can attach significance to their actions, and thus gain a moral compass. This seems particularly the case with the less educated, at least in my dealings with the various religious groups I come in contact with. (The more academic "religious" people I meet, if you query them actually have their own moral compass with which their religion happens to be compatible with. The less academic are more apt to point to "the book"
    • One of the reasons for this happening is that for the most part in China, the police don't give a damn. They do not have the Cop Mentality of "Let's catch bad guys" like most (but of course not all) western police do. Just getting them to open a case on anything, even the most blatant criminal behavior, is like pulling teeth.
  • ...it seems the discussion devolves into one of indiscriminant China bashing. I say indiscriminant because it usually ends up including not only comments on the government (justified, most of the time), but also attacks on the people and culture that would get one's faced punched in if they said it to a Chinese person's face. Some of the things I have read here are as bad if not worse than what is described in the article. From an overseas Chinese student who is sick of borderline racism disguised as con
  • It[The Chinese Government] also introduced an Internet policing system whose cartoon figure mascots show up on people's screens to remind them they are being monitored.

    Am I the only one who just imagined Clippy wearing a little chinese police hat?

    Oh no, here comes the rage blackout again...
  • ...ooooohhhh dangerous, dangerous internet......ooooohhhh nasty, persecutory chinese...

  • Mobsters (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Thursday June 01 2006, @05:59PM (#15449469) Homepage Journal
    Troll Subject not even supported by the story. Slashdot is learning too much from the mass media.

    How is that "mob" ruling anything? The people in the public investigated publicly known events. Then they used the usual power organized people have to pressure people who listen to them. Where's the "rule"? Where, indeed, is the "mob"?

    That story is interesting mainly in the power regular people are accruing in China, a Communist tyranny that favors totalitarianism. I guess if you're a Chinese Communist powermonger, the Internet and people using its open society represent "mob rule', because tyrants see the world only in the simplest, most polarized power structures.

    Maybe Alien54 and the IHT are learning more from Xin Hua, China's official propaganda publisher [xinhua.cn], and quoting the best lessons from the New York Times.

    • Re:Mobsters (Score:2, Insightful)

      by tksh (816129)

      Wait, did we read the same article?

      Someone under a pseudo-name posts accusations, a bunch of people respond and get all riled up and encourages more people to join them in their cause. A name is given and random people from all over dig up information about the guy and other random people in real life start harassing the guy and his family. All this without concrete evidence, they're just going by someone's words on the internet. Even when the original poster tries to call things off, they ignore him a

    • The "mob rule" is the group of thousands applying their own brand of justice, using neither trial, jury, nor judge. I don't know about you, but when I hear "mob rule", I think torches and pitchforks, which is essentially what happened.

      It's not even like adultery is even a crime (or is it ... ). Sure, he might be a jerk for cuckolding someone (and notice that even the alleged cuckold has rescinded his accusations), but does the punishment here really fit the crime? I don't think it does in this case, and f

      • phone calls = torches & pitchforks?

        There's a vast gulf between harassment and lynching. And between lynching and due process of law, even vaster. These episodes lie somewhere between, at harassment. That's not "mob rule".

        • These episodes lie somewhere between, at harassment. That's not "mob rule".

          How is this form of harassment not mob rule? Would you like it if I create some trumped up charges against you, gather a mob, then proceed to turn your life into a living hell through harassing phone calls and posting of death threats against you and you associates? How about "We call on every company, every establishment, every office, school, hospital, shopping mall and public street to reject him."

          There's more to mob rule

          • I call that slander, libel and harassment - even assault, but not battery.

            When China's "Cultural Revolution" lynched, killed and terrorized millions with physical violence at the hands of actual mobs in the streets, that was mob rule, controlled by the mafia mob running the country. Just because something isn't "mob rule", that doesn't mean I'd like it.

            As for "due process rights", those are rules of the government. Kidnapping is not false imprisonment, and mass harassment is not "deprivation of due process"

            • When China's "Cultural Revolution" lynched, killed and terrorized millions with physical violence at the hands of actual mobs in the streets, that was mob rule, controlled by the mafia mob running the country.

              So if many mobs terrorize millions, its mob rule, but if a single mob terrorizes a single person, its "just" harassment? Tell me, then, at what point does this harassment rise to the level of mob rule? Does the guy have to be physically attacked? Are the death threats and threats of physical impr

      • I agree mostly, though I expect trial by jury to enforce community standards that are encoded into expectations under law, including proof of evidence and protecting other rights of the accused.

        But I'm not sure whose behavior you mean when you say "if everyone has a "every man for himself" type mentality, well then you get the kind of behaviour you found in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina". Do you mean the behavior of the government agencies which left people to drown and fend for themselves? Or are
    • Can you, for example, please point out where the forced-labor camps in the US are?
      • Can you, for example, please point out where the forced-labor camps in the US are?

        http://www.walmart.com/cservice/ca_storefinder.gsp [walmart.com]
      • All the Wal-Mart jokes aside, I suggest you Google on "US prison labor" and spend a while reading what comes up. It's not as bad as China ... (yet) ... but it's pretty grim.
        • It isn't exactly forced labor, though I wouldn't mind seeing hard labor make a comeback.

          Prisoners get paid anywhere from 4 to 50 cents an hour, which means they are the cheapest labor to be found in the U.S.

          BTW - Having a prison job like that is normally doled out as a privilege for those who behave themselves.

          What's scary is the idea of privatized prisons turning into a defacto labor camp so that the operators can make more money. I'd rather see abuse, corruption and/or fuck ups happen in the hands of Stat
          • What is even more frightening to me, at least in my capacity as student of medical ethics, is the practice of using the United States prison population for medical experimentation. No it isn't as bad as Aushwitz, but rewarding good behavior in the US prison system with infecting prisoners with diseases so the disease progression may be studied, or administering drugs of questionable safety for similar reasons even when participation is technically "voluntary" I consider to be extremely ethically questionab
    • Well, for one thing, it's private parties doing it, not the government.

      So in other words, America is where you worry about a totalitarian, monolithic government prying into every detail of your private life (and possibly using what it turns up as an excuse to ship you off to a secret prison) and China is where you worry about vigilantes and lynch-mob frontier justice. We really are living in Bizarro World.
    • Yep, /. has done this to a spammer [slashdot.org] after he made an annoying interview bragging about how awesome he is and the only thing he has to worry about is the pile of money falling on him.

      Shortly after, someone posted his physical address and lo! he started receiving a LOT of junk mail. Like, a DOS on the postal service amount of junk mail.

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