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Online Vigilantes, Or "Crowdsourced Justice"

Posted by Soulskill on from the when-internet-detectives-attack dept.

destinyland writes "The Chinese credit the 'human flesh search engine' for successfully locating 'the kitten killer of Hangzhou' from clues in her online video. But in February, the same force identified a teenage cat-abuser in Oklahoma — within 24 hours of his video's appearance on YouTube. 'Netizens are the new Jack Bauer,' argues one science writer, and with three billion potential detectives, 'attempts to hide will only add thrill to the chase.' But China's vigilantes ultimately turned their attention to China's Internet Propaganda Office, bypassing censorship of a director's personal information using social networks, including Twitter. The author suggests there's a new principle emerging in the online world: 'The Internet does not forget, does not forgive and cannot be stopped. Ever.'"

5 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. It's great! ...until... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The crowd makes a mistake and some random dude gets beaten down for something his lookalike neighbour did.
    Do a news.google.com search for: vilgilante mistake
    read
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1357909/Man-beaten-to-death-by-mistake.html

  2. Re:I have a very bad feeling about this by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The author of the article doesn't get it

    Fortunately, human flesh search engines don't end the lives of their victims, like the witch-hunts or lynching of the past.

    No, they just make it impossible to ever live a normal life ever again. They ruin your career and alienate your friends and family. They force you to live through humiliation and shaming every day, often for weeks or months at a time.

    All based on a single, often easily fabricated, piece of evidence. That isn't justice, it's just a mob being a mob and harrassing other people for the fun of it.

  3. Re:I have a very bad feeling about this by scubamage · · Score: 5, Insightful
    You obviously haven't been to law school, through a corrections course, or seen what happens to people who have ever been convicted of a crime. There's a reason we have higher recidivism rates than nearly any other country on earth. We destroy the lives of our convicts, often off of shreds of evidence that are flamboyantly paraded by charismatic lawyers while denying evidence that could change the verdict because of legal technicalities. Good luck getting a job if you've been convicted.

    These groups only really pursue people who do one of two things - 1) try to make information that is free unfree (the antithesis of the internet), and 2) do things so abhorrant that they rouse the majority to action against them.

  4. Re:It's great! ...until... by fm6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Right, rules of evidence, jury trials, right to appeal, right to have legal representation, none of these make any difference.

    The question isn't "which system never screws up". There's no such system. The question is which system screws up the least. I think that a system that relies on some random idiot saying, "Hey, that must be the guy!" isn't even close to the top of that list.

  5. Re:No by hedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Tell that to the black and Jewish victims of lynching in the south. Yes, in many cases vigilantism can be a form of law enforcement. The problem though is that when a group of citizens answers to no one the potential for abuse and stepping beyond law enforcement is definitely there. And while many of those lynched had committed capital offenses, most hadn't.

    Yes, in the two cases cited it seems to have worked out in the interest of justice, but they could just as easily have found somebody that wasn't guilty.