Q & A about "Human Flesh Search"

Natalia Tobón, a reporter for China Files, recently asked me some questions about the phenomenon of "human flesh search" (ren rou sou suo) in China. Below are my responses to her questions:

Tobón: How do you define Human Flesh Search Engine and would you consider it as a way of online activism?

Yang: I don’t think it should be called the “Human Flesh Search Engine.” That’s a wrong translation. It is simply “human flesh search.” Some people think it is a tool, something like Google Search, but it is not. It is a social phenomenon, a form of collective action. Some cases may be considered as instances of online activism, but not all of them. In those cases that may be viewed as online activism, the targets of the search are usually 1) corrupt officials, 2) individuals who have violated the moral codes of the society, and 3) people who have committed some form of social injustice against vulnerable individuals. These cases are forms of social activism because those who participate in or support the search wish to expose social ills, challenge authorities, and produce social change in some other ways.

Tobón: What are the reasons (practical, historical, sociological) that make this practice relatively common in China. Do you think Chinese society has some traits that helped the development of this phenomenon?

Yang: Two factors are most important. One is the existence of a lively, dynamic and contentious Internet culture in China, including large and popular online communities. These online communities provide the communication networks for human flesh search. They are channels of communication. The other main reason is contemporary social conditions – the prevalence of social injustice, corruption, a sense of powerlessness among the common people, and the government’s failure to deal with these problems. Under these conditions, human flesh search becomes a means of collective action and a reflection of the high levels of popular resentments and frustrations in Chinese society.

For some individuals, participation in human flesh search brings that sense of honor and self-righteousness that is often found in hacker culture. In Chinese cyber-culture, hackers are often compared to xia - heroes or heroines in the imagined world of martial arts, who strive for fame and honor by seeking to restore justice in an evil society.

The most radical behavior in “human flesh search” usually involves the hacking of web sites or personal emails. This aspect of the phenomenon has drawn criticism from observers because hacktivism often violates individual privacy and sometimes brings harm to innocent individuals.

These issues of honor, justice, and violations of privacy in Chinese cyber-culture are discussed in Chapter 7 of my book. The chapter is titled “Utopian Realism in Online Communities.”

Tobón: How is possible that in a country with such control of Internet, this phenomenon seems to be freely practiced?

Yang: This shows that efforts to control the Internet are often ineffective, however sophisticated Internet control has become. There is a simple truth here, but one often neglected: Internet users are not dupes. They always come up with creative ways of undermining or bypassing control.

It may also indicate some degree of government tolerance toward some cases of human flesh search because the main issues involved in these cases are social rather than explicitly anti-governmental. Undoubtedly web sites also use various strategies to promote this phenomenon because whenever such cases happen, web traffic increases.

Third, I think the growing frequency of the human flesh search phenomenon demonstrates the power of the Internet as a tool for communication, interaction, and search. So much information is online nowadays, private or public, that it often doesn’t take a great deal of efforts to dig up and piece together information about an individual person. Users can make creative use of the Internet to generate and circulate information. When such information is put to good use, it becomes powerful knowledge. Of course, there is always the possibility of misinformation or abuse of information, but assuming that Internet users, like other human beings, are mostly people with reason, judgments, and analytical skills, they are not going to be so easily duped by misinformation.