Searching for truth: Cybervigilantism and networked communication in Asia

Human Flesh Search Engine

According to Cheong and Gong (2010), human flesh search or ren ruo sou suo (人肉搜索) involves individuals contributing their individual efforts toward a common goal by collaboratively constructing and sharing previously inaccessible information across multiple platforms.

Digital and social media are used to hunt for personal demographic or geographical information of social deviants, often with the shared intention to expose, shame, and punish them to reinstate legal justice or public morality.

On the Chinese version of Wikipedia, "flesh search" refers to a mass movement of finding out personal information or truths behind particular events.
It uses the Internet as a medium and gathers information partly through human labor to differentiate true and false sources, and partly via information provided by anonymous insiders. The qualifier ‘flesh’ indicates the important role of human intervention, which is distinct from conventional, algorithm-based, mechanical searches.
(http://zh.wikipedia.org, translation by Cheong and Gong, 2010.)

 

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