Anyone heard of the Chinese Netizens?

[Irving]

I heard about this the other day on NPR when the Google thing was going on. I found a couple of articles, but this one seems to be the closest to the report I heard and the impression I have of this group of people:

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archi...2/1816996.aspx

So this article doesn't touch exactly on the issue here. The NPR story was reporting that the blogosphere in China is apparently very powerful. One example given was that there was a picture posted some where online of a woman kicking a cat or something. The 'Netizens' went to work to find out who she was, and within 24 hours she had lost her job.

Another guy immediately bought up as many earthquake related website domain names after the earth quake in Haiti. He claims that he was going to donate the profits to Haiti, but the 'Netizens' found all his personal information and hounded him at work and home so much that he was forced to quit his day job.

I find this level of neighborhood watch very interesting. On one hand, it allows people to doll out justice that might never come from any other source, but on the other hand, it allows people to doll out justice that might never have been deserved. I've recently (before I heard of this in China) been thinking about the repercussions of an anonymous group of people going after people based on limited information. The NPR report also mentioned people being harassed in person as well. I thought this would make a good discussion. This is certainly something that could quickly spiral out of control.

I personally would like to see some sort of publicly ran criminal database, but even that would get out of hand and potentially lead to lawsuits. Think of it like that website that lets you post info about a previous ex (if they are a cheater, cheap ass, emotionally unstable/abusive) but instead listing information you know about some one who has committed a crime against you. Like if you had the personal information of an uninsured driver who totaled your car and then you never heard of that again or something.

Comments?

[jake]

It sounds a lot like the people on 4Chan, who've tracked down people in similar circumstances. The one that immediately springs to mind was some braindead teenager who uploaded a video of himself punching his cat to youtube. They tracked him down and passed on all of his personal details to the local police.

A lot of people from 4Chan are involved in Anonymous and their efforts against the Church of Scientology too.

[Not_A_Llama]

"Netizens" is just "Internet citizens". Probably about the same vintage as "information superhighway". It's not a formal group.

Like jake says, you see a lot of the same here. It'd be like an ARFCOM "Fire mission", or any of the shit that goes down on 4chan or SA.

[Irving]

This is a very interesting, under utilized resource.