Essay Draft 4

Human Flesh Engine is a powerful product of social media in China. It is not the literally a traditional searching engine, like Google or Bing, but a phenomenon that people post questions on forum or blogs, allowing other uses to freely answer. Human Flesh Engine is a place where collaborative efforts are shared information online. It first appeared as the name of a forum on Mop.com - a discussion website popular in China. Internet users can post and answer various questions on it. The first Flesh Search was the Kitten-killer Incident in 2006('High-heeled kitten killer apologizes',2006). A video about one woman with high-heel crushing a kitten to death was widely spread on the Internet. Many of the angry Internet users blamed her, asking for the personal details of this woman on the forum of various websites. The actress and the video's producer were traced to Luobei County in the northern province. Since that time Internet users have been using this kind of search engine to pursue the justice and discover the truth in the real life. Due to the increasing use of the flesh search engine ,many of the ordinary citizens are also got attacked.Due to the information posted wrongly, innocent people are accused of actions that they do not commit. Because of that, the People's Congress of Zhejiang province has already made it a prosecutable crime for an Internet user to publish the address and private activities of anyone without their permission. Furthermore,another way to decrease the number of innocents affected by Human Flesh Engine could be through improving the education about privacy issues on the Internet.In order to protect the privacy of Internet users,the legislation by the government and the education on every Internet user should be used as the tools.

Internet users use a Flesh Search in order to correct some actions they deem wrong,but ordinary citizens are also deeply affected by being falsely accused of actions they do not commit. On the Flesh Search platform,this sleuthing process involves the probing and posting of personal details in pursuit of romance,kinship,justice or vindication. Citizens are exposed to a deluge of home and email addresses,bank statements and other private information. Sometimes, the exposed information does not belong to the person under "search". Innocent people have got been attacked by those angry, dissatisfied and unaware Internet users. One example is that of Yin Feng, a part time taxi driver. Internet users posted news about a taxi driver,who rolled down his window to spit on an elderly homeless person lying on the street. Witnesses recorded the first digits of the spitter's number plate and began to Flesh Search it. Through the Flesh Search Engine, Internet users put their eyes on Yin, whose number plates partially matched, and some anonymous users posted his mobile number online. Numerous callers berated innocent Yin, screaming obscenities. As other private information such as ID number,home address and even relatives phone number were also posted, Yin even got threatened by those callers. There are a lot of persons facing the same situation as Yin. Their daily lives are dramatically disturbed and their reputations are also ruined. Ordinary people begin to be scared by Human Flesh Search engines and against it. 

In order to preserve the right of online users, some parts of China have implemented some protection laws to act against the Human Flesh Search Engine. In 2010, "Zhejiang Province's Informatization Promotion Regulations(Draft)" stated that "any unit or individual must not publish,distribute,delete,or edit another's related information without permission".At the same time, the State Council office also published a white paper on "The State of China's Internet",which indicated that Chinese citizens should receive protections under the law for free online speech(Song,2010). The Chinese government tried to use this law to crack down on the Flesh Search. However, it seems that it has not been working well. According to online research conducted by the Renmin Net, over 90% of the Internet users were against the ban of Flesh Search(Ming,2010). Internet users thought that Flesh Search was an effective way for the public, especially the ordinary citizens, to supervise the government officers and expose their corrupt actions. Through the collective work of online users, a lot of prodigal behaviours of officers are exposed. In this way, people are unwilling to give up this useful tool, even if they face the same risks of information leakage. Furthermore, many Internet users are anonymous when they share information online. This results in difficulties tracking them for prosecutions. People will also avoid the trouble of suing attackers when the influence is on a small scale.

Another move to reduce the damages that are brought by the Flesh Search Engine is the education and the restraints on the online users themselves. After seeing that many ordinary people are getting attacked, Internet users are voluntarily listing some rules about Flesh Search, called "8 Flesh Search Self-disciplinary Rules"('Who benefit from the banning of flesh search engine?',2010). This is an essential action to produce an orderly online environment.In the self-disciplinary rules, online users are advised to try not to search for the private information about someone and use the Flesh Search Engine as a mutual helping platform instead of simply satisfying self-interests. Instead of law regulations, this kind of self-discipline improves the reliability of shared information and try to use the Search Engine on a right way. It is the ideal online environment if all online users are following this kind of rules, making full use of flesh Search Engine in a positive way. However,there are still some selfish users who disrupt the correct use of Flesh Search Engine and also abuse the shared information.It will be a long way to make sure that the Flesh Search Engine is an helpful in people's lives, instead of a sharp sword hurting innocent people.

All in all, it is hard to solve the problems brought by the Human Flesh Search Engine in the short run. Innocent people will still be getting attacked by this Flesh Search. Despite the established laws and self-discipline raised by responsible online users, more attention should also be paid by the governmernt and Internet users on this kind of search engine.

Word Count:1025 words

References:

(1)Song,L.(June 21, 2010) 地方立法限制人肉搜索引争议 官员害怕网络监督[Controversy on the ban of human flesh search engine,officials scare the network supervision]. Liaowang. Retrieved from http://news.xinhuanet.com/lianzheng/2010-06/21/c_12243829.htm
(2)Ming,L.(Febraru 5,2010) 试析“人肉搜索”之利与弊[Advantages and disadvantages of flesh search engine].hljnews.cn. Retrieved from http://www.hljnews.cn/fou_baoye/2010-02/05/content_696831.htm
(3)立法禁止人肉搜索谁受益？[Who benefit from the banning of flesh search engine?](August 25,2010). lawtime.cn Retrieved from http://www.lawtime.cn/info/xingfa/xfnews/2010082559009.html
(4)High-heeled kitten killer apologizes(March 16,2006).chinadaily.cn Retrieved from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-03/16/content_540375.htm