“Yesterday after work I went online and took part in renrou sousuo. The girl’s boyfriend cheated on her while she was away on vacation in Hong Kong, so she posted all of his personal information on her blog. He deserves to be punished!”
I don’t think I have ever been more confused than the time when my friend Wang Yang tried to describe what renrou sousuo means. Renrou = ”human flesh” and Sousuo = “search”
What exactly does “human flesh search†entail?
In short, human flesh search describes the phenomenon in which a group of Chinese netizens, strangers to one another, organize online to discover an individual’s personal information and track down his or her whereabouts. Quite often the first part of the search is easy, because the person who initiates the search posts the “culprit’s” private information online on their personal blog or on a public BBS forum. Once the target is identified, the online search can transition into the physical world. Enraged netizens will call and harass the culprit along with their family. There are even a series of documented cases in which the culprit, overwhelmed by the pressure and humiliation of the human flesh search, commits suicide.
Human flesh search: drivers and enablers
Human flesh search is a web-enabled mob, and like any other mob, the mob mentality primarily drives participating netizens’ behavior. Key enablers are the various technologies that netizens leverage to communicate and execute the search (see yesterday’s post). While individual participants in the search may be driven by irrational motives, the constant communication offered by the enabling technology makes the group as a whole act in a surprisingly efficient and intelligent manner.
Case Study #1: When human flesh search gets ugly
One of the most well known cases of human flesh search in China occurred earlier this year when a man’s wife jumped 24 floors to her death. Before she committed suicide she wrote multiple blog entries describing the details of her husband’s affair. Chinese netizens, eager to see justice served, tracked down and publicized her husband’s photos and personal contact information. Her husband, Wang Fei, an advertising agency executive; completely lost his privacy and had no choice but to quit his job because of netizens’ harassment. He subsequently sued the websites that helped the search take place for damages.
Case Study #2: The friendly side of human flesh search
Ren-Rou.cn is a Chinese website whose sole purpose is to document and promote human flesh search. One of the key features is a human flesh search engine, where users post who they want to track down. To my surprise, not all of the posts were netizens looking for revenge. Many of the posts were by netizens interested in locating former boyfriends and girlfriends or old friends whom they fell out of touch with. Ren-Rou.cn shows that there is a friendlier side to human flesh search and not all of it is malicious.
The Observer’s Thoughts
After only a few years of development renrou sousuo is already widespread in the Chinese online space. What bothers me about this form of online vigilantism is the fact that typically the evidence provided is only one sided. While many of the targets of the human flesh search may be justifiably in the wrong, netizens are too quick to side with the initiator of the search. The renrou sousuo phenomenon shows us that complete privacy may no longer exist. Regardless of whether you live in China or anywhere else in the world strangers have the tools at their disposal to check up on you and your doings.
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