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'Human flesh search engine:' an Internet lynching?

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-07-04 17:36

A woman stomps on the head of the kitten with her high-heeled shoes and crushes it into death at last. [file]

The year 2008 has seen a peak of Renrou searching, when a husband whose wife committed suicide because of his betrayal, a man who disrupted torch relay in Paris and a girl from northeastern China who dared to criticize those affected by the massive earthquake became targets.

"Those who mistreated the vulnerable are likely to incur the hatred of netizens," said an online freelancer nicknamed Ayawawa who herself was involved in a search for a disloyal husband.

"I just want them to be punished," she said, adding that according to Chinese law, such behavior, although immoral, invite no legal punishment.

After the May 12 earthquake, a girl from a college in Chongqing municipality nicknamed Diebao said on the Internet that the earthquake was "interesting". "I wonder why wasn't it more vehement?" she said.

Her mother and teacher received cursing and threatening phone calls from angry netizens, forcing the girl to suspend her schooling.

In comparison, the punishment of Wang Fei seemed more severe. His wife Jiang Yan jumped from 24th floor on December 27 last year after learning of Wang's adultery, leaving a blog diary to recall her despair over the previous two months.

People not only wrote characters with paint on the door of Wang's parents accusing them of killing Jiang, but contacted Saatchi & Saatchi, the company where Wang and his mistress worked. Later the company suspended them, and the pair later resigned.

Wang sued the Tianya and Daqi websites in April for infringing his privacy and reputation, which was recognized as the first lawsuit against a Renrou search.

"It has seriously hampered my normal life," Wang said, noting that he had received many mails and his parents were frequently harassed.

"This is online violence," said a friend of Wang who only identified his surnamed as Jia, "netizens could blame him, but exposing his personal information is not right. After all he is not really a bad person, and most, if not all, of the netizens didn't really know what happened between the couple."

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