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Online Vigilantes, Or "Crowdsourced Justice"
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.'"
This is less about the vigilantism of the Crowd, and more about the utter stupidity of [some] criminal/deviants.
Stupid criminals shoot video of their crimes. Incredibly fucking stupid criminals put the video on youtube.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
'human flesh search engine'
RedTube?
.
Trolling is a art,
"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.'""
So the author came up with that? Seriously? Pretty sure that's been a main line (well, at least a version of it) for the groups for a long while.
it is not a good thing,
See, this is why you can't trust free speech and open information. One minute it's saving kittens, and then next minute it's BITING YOU IN THE ASS! I can has truth plz? kthnxbye!
Always nice to see the Chinese circumventing the Great Firewall. There is no way you'll get good information if all you get is government information.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Maybe the internet can catch this guy. I hope so, and am glad he doesn't live here.
Free Martian Whores!
"The Internet does not forget, does not forgive and cannot be stopped. Ever." that's why I'm adding the internet to my Fav5.
-- All this knowledge is giving me a raging brainer.
At least have the decenecy to tag the above link NSFW.
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
I offer this:
Look at history, and political science and take a hard look at why republics functioned beter then pure democracy. The Internet runs the same risk.
Take heed and good luck, crowd sourcing has a hidden downside people are forgetting.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Just in case someone here...by some freak chance...doesn't know that RedTube is basically YouTube for Porn, don't clicky the linky if you're at work...y.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
So the Internet is like ...the Terminator of electronic communication tools?
"It cannot be reasoned with" - yeah, sounds about right.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
More like the new mob. It's fine if you fit in, if you agree with whatever "the internet" agrees on. It's utter hell if you don't.
"The internet" is not much better than the average religious nutjobs picketing abortion clinics. They just picket different targets. Sure, today it's kitten killers and the Co$. But how long 'til the next groupthink target is a group you belong to? Will it take a lot to jump from hunting down criminals to hunting down people that dare to be different, that refuse to fit in, that did nothing really wrong but made someone feel "uneasy" thinking of what he does?
And I'm not even talking about sexual fetishes that make me (and probably a few other people) cringe.
It's a small step from vigilantism to harassment. From fighting a crime that the justice system ignores to beating people you just don't simply like.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Many people will SAY anything. I've seen people on /. advocate the murder of people who hold views of copyright different from their own. Extreme positions get amplified on the internet because extreme people can easily interact with other like-minded extreme people. That's all fine and dandy, so long as it's just idiots saying stupid stuff. Freedom of speech, whatever.
The problem for me is that there is a very small minority of people who can be triggered to act by the incitement of others. These people will reach out and HURT people with little or no factual support. Unless stopped, people like this exert an evil influence all out of proportion to their otherwise insignificant place in society. Nazis did that kind of stuff in the 1930s and it really chilled the behavior of other law-abiding Germans. A real turd-Kultur was created there. That kind of history ought best not be repeated.
If people alter their behavior because they are afraid of being tormented by Internet-spawned wrongful "meat world" attacks, then they are not free. Balancing protection from such acts with the right to freely interact on the internet is a serious legal and moral challenge.
Ooops. Sorry we killed an innocent man. We'll get it right next time. The reason we have (admittedly a very broken) justice system is the crowd is not at all capable of making reasonable and consistent judgments on the guilt and severity of a crime. The crowd doesn't demand punishment for the guilty; the crowd demands a scapegoat in retribution for a wrong whether the guilty party can be reached or not(Sorry Iraq).
...welcome our new YouTube watching overlords!
Sounds like he just watched The Terminator...
'The Internet does not forget, does not forgive and cannot be stopped. Ever.'
From the movie..
So what's the difference between the crowd making a mistale and the police making a mistake?
DNA Testing Clears Virginia Man Of 1984 Rape
Chicago man sues Chicago, police over wrongful conviction
Milwaukee DA Drops Charge In 1995 Murder Case
Tests prove innocence of 23-year prisoner in Texas
New arson analysis may free convicted murderer
Texas Enacts 'Innocence Committee' Over Excessive Wrongful Convictions
Free Martian Whores!
While I'm not too thrilled about people taking the law into their own hands, lets try to keep some perspective. How many innocent people have been jailed or executed by our 'proper' systems of justice? More than a few, I'll bet. Judges and juries are prone to making mistakes just like the rest of us. Most of these internet vigilante cases so far have ended in personal information being made public, threats against the suspects and evidence being sent to local authorities who take it from there (unless the person didn't actually commit a crime in his country). I'm hoping the internet gives some sense of separation from the issue that keeps people from doing anything too rash, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
The outcome ultimately is justice through online voting and consensus systems, like the moderation system here, or the various systems of community sanctions over at Wikipedia. The problem is not that these systems are unfair, since they are arguably no worse than traditional legal systems (whose track record is far from perfect). The problem is that they are open to manipulation by people who have the willingness and the knowhow to game the system.
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Cheyenne_Cherry
Anonymous hates people, but loves cats (as evidenced by Caturday and the entire "lolcats" phenomena). Their most recent target is the evil Cheyenne Cherry, who put a kitten in an oven and roasted it alive. Anonymous went through a lot of effort to get as much info as possible, but jumped the gun at first. The NY Daily News reported a 75-yo retiree with a similar name had her phone number posted, and the result? "They're all saying, 'You'll burn in hell,' 'Who the hell do you think you are?'" Bernadette Cherry, 72, said of the 75 calls from cat lovers."
My fucking god! Every time I turn around, there comes to my attention yet another sick thing I couldn't possibly have imagined on my own. "Kitten Killing Videos"?? Holy crap!! And no, nobody needs to list "things sicker than kitten killing videos" and definitely do not post links. To this day, I have not watched two girls and a cup. It was the Daniel Pearlman video that convinced me that if I am warned that I shouldn't see a video, I should probably heed the warning. It cured my "morbid sense of curiosity" forever. (Movie violence be damned, but for all my "kill the spammers" rants, I doubt I could actually stomach actually being the executioner... handing down the sentence is one thing, but actually killing another person? Probably more than I can handle.)
I'm sure Grace Wang would agree with you.
In brief, Grace Wang was an international student at Duke and dared to try an initiate a discussion between the pro-Tibet and pro-Chinese sides of a protest. After being attacked on forums such as mitbbs.com "Online Vigilantes" decided to bring these attacks to the real world by posting her personal information (her student visa application) and providing maps to her parents' house (which was defaced, causing her parents to go into hiding).
Defending kittens are one thing, but as with "think of the children", it rarely stops there.
Someone clever could turn this into a Two Minute Hate, craft videos of crimes not really committed, wars not really fought, and enemies who don't exist. Congratulations, you can now harness the raw power of a hateful, vindictive crowd.
"The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroyâ" everything. "
Wasn't this predicted years ago by Bruce Sterling in Makeki Neko? Use of the 'net to commit "death by a thousand paper cuts", or harassment by many, many small acts, each of which individually wouldn't be considered unlawful, but in aggregate become overwhelming? I'm not sure whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, but it almost certainly is going to happen.
The government isn't going to waste time and money going after these people and thus far it sure seems like these are some fuckers who really deserve whatever the government can do to them. People who participate in hunting these people are just filling a void.
It sounds like nothing illegal was done by those participating in the hunt, at least nothing obvious. It's not like they are hunting the person down in order to physically assault them, they just all want to express their opinion at the same time to that person and make sure that everyone who knows them is aware of what they have done. Is it really a lynch mob if the noose is nothing more than information?
There is a reason why people still want vigilante justice today, because when someone who is obvious guilt of something like child rape, gets one year in jail, it pisses even the most level headed of us off.
No, it doesn't make it right, I'm just saying.
Suffice it to say, justice in this world is not perfect. And it will always be imperfect.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Whatever. Take that feel-good stuff somewhere else. Two wrongs often do make a write, and eye for an eye does make me feel better. I don't care what Gandhi says.
Ah, it makes you feel better. Hm... Basing morality on urges is kind of a bad sign, isn't it?
I might suggest we all try to find ethical wisdom from different sources, rather than some anon online forum commenters. I know, kooky.
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.
Vigilante justice is wrong and it isn't hard to prove that, but the instances cited in TFA aren't really about vigilante justice as the summary would suggest. The crowd didn't find these people and punish them, it just found them. They will be subject to the same due process as anybody else accused of a crime (though I can't speak for in China). The trend worth discussing here is more akin to internet detective-work, not internet justice, and I think we can agree that internet detective-work has a stronger case than vigilante justice.
The "cannot be stopped" part of the summary is complete nonsense. All you need to do to stop the internet is show it something shiny. Public opinion and passion is notoriously fickle.
If there are a thousand crimes committed, the police will make a real effort to investigate all of them, allocating their resources reasonably according to the severity of the crime and the likelyhood of a successful investigation. They will work on an investigation for days, weeks, months or years as required.
The internet "angry mob", on the other hand, will only investigate the single most exciting, dramatic, attention-getting crime. They will devote 100% of their effort to finding a scapegoat for that crime, until they get bored or something more exciting comes along.
A smart police force can and will use the power of the masses (think "Amber alert"), but it is still in control of the investigation.
I hate it when I make a joke and I get modded "+5 insightful". Mod the stupid comments "funny", not "insightful", pleas
And then the most level headed among you go looking for revenge on the pediatricians.
Didn't you even wonder why people _don't_ want vigilante justice?
PC LOAD LETTER'? The f--- does that mean?
It's not even which system screws up the least - it's which system has built in procedures for error correction (which mostly) work, and built in procedures for appeals (which mostly work). The system that relies on some random idiot saying, "Hey, that must be the guy!" lacks both of these key features.
Nobody with any sense won't admit our current justice problems, but you'd have to be seriously biased or ignorant to fail the realize the vast difference between the two systems or to ask questions like "what's the difference between the crowd making a mistale [sic] and the police making a mistake?"
The grandparent poster was not saying that internet vigilantism isn't always unjustified. In the three cases cited in the article, it clearly was. The problem is, once these vigilante groups are mobilized, they are not very easily demobilized. Also, they don't give the accused a chance to answer and defend themselves. In such an environment its very easy for the mob to go after the wrong person, either through mistaken identity or intentional frame-up.
To put it another way, the only assurance we have of the accuracy of this mob's sleuthing is the claims of the mob themselves. There are no even notionally unbiased authorities looking at the evidence from both parties and trying to decide if someone is guilty.
You'll notice that in cities like New York it is now a CRIME to ignore a crime in progress (Good Samaratin law)
You're obligated to call police, not take action yourself. In fact, if you imprisoned someone who you thought was stealing from you (even if you had evidence) the cops would haul you off to jail before they went after the would-be offender.
I think if a crime is commited, and I can respond to it in a way that will prevent further loss of life, realty, property, et al. before anyone else can, then I will.
That's a very dangerous attitude to take. After all, you are not omniscient. All you have is the evidence before you, which may or may not be telling the whole story. Unless you let the accused have a chance to stand and answer the charges levied against them, all you're holding is a kangaroo court.
In short, I consider you no more civilized than the woman who put her high heel through that cat's eye.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it