China's Human Flesh Search Engine

Contributed by Belinda Tang

In the midst of China's debates over Internet censorship and privacy, one role of Netizens on the internet has been increasingly growing over the past few years. Deemed the "human flesh search engine", a method through which Chinese internet users are able to pinpoint, and oftentimes harass, people who have committed some sort of moral crime. While this started with mostly personal violations that the government could not solve--for example, a cheating spouse, or sexually deviant people--the use of this "human flesh search engine" has since expanded out to include issues that are not as morally black and white. Recently, the search engine was used to harass a young Chinese women who was trying to negotiate between Chinese and Tibetan people, and there have also been cases of people being targeted for being "not patriotic" enough.

With the wide possibilities that this tool creates, it is also, of course, important to take into consideration the wide dangers that the use of this search engine can be used towards. As demonstrated, the people who are becoming targeted by the search engine are becoming more and more subjective, and the harassment that occurs oversteps more and more boundaries. In a world where censorship is often pointed out, the Chinese government has done surprisingly little against this human search engine, as it lacks a politically threatening nature. In fact, some argue that the human flesh search engine actually advances many of the grassroots goals at the heart of Chinese communism. Regardless of the government's role in this, however, it's necessary to discuss the potential repercussions of this kind of moral behavior and persecution.