SHANGHAI, June 2 — It began with an impassioned, 5,000-word letter on one of the country's most popular Internet bulletin boards from a husband denouncing a college student he suspected of having an affair with his wife. Immediately, hundreds joined in the attack.
"Let's use our keyboard and mouse in our hands as weapons," one person wrote, "to chop off the heads of these adulterers, to pay for the sacrifice of the husband."
Within days, the hundreds had grown to thousands, and then tens of thousands, with total strangers forming teams that hunted down the student, hounded him out of his university and caused his family to barricade themselves inside their home.
You are not safe from the e-world in the real world.
It was just the latest example of a growing phenomenon the Chinese call Internet hunting, in which morality lessons are administered by online throngs and where anonymous Web users come together to investigate others and mete out punishment for offenses real and imagined.
Not just morality lessons but political ones also are handled in this manner.
In recent instances, people have scrutinized husbands suspected of cheating on their wives, fraud on Internet auction sites, the secret lives of celebrities and unsolved crimes. One case that drew a huge following involved the poisoning of a Tsinghua University student, an event that dates to 1994 but was revived by curious strangers after word spread that the only suspect in the case had been questioned and released.
Even a recent scandal involving a top Chinese computer scientist dismissed for copying the design of an American processor came to light in part because of Internet hunting, with scores of online commentators raising questions about the project and putting pressure on the scientist's sponsors to look into the allegations.
While Internet wars can crop up anywhere, these cases have set off alarms in China, where this sort of crowd behavior has led to violence in the past. Many draw disturbing parallels to the Cultural Revolution, whose 40th anniversary is this year, when mobs of students taunted and beat their professors. Mass denunciations and show trials became the order of the day for a decade.
In recent years, the government has gradually tightened controls on the Internet, censoring popular search engines, like Google and Technorati; employing thousands of Web police officers; and requiring that customers at Internet cafes provide identification.
There has been recurrent talk by the government of registering all Internet users, and many worry that a wave of online threats and vigilantism could serve as a pretext to impose new limits on users.
The affair of the cuckolded husband first came to public attention in mid-April, after the man, who goes by the Web name Freezing Blade, discovered online correspondence between his wife, Quiet Moon, and a college student, Bronze Mustache. After an initial conversation, in which he forgave his wife, the man discovered messages on his wife's computer that confirmed to him that the liaison was continuing. He then posted the letter denouncing Bronze Mustache, and identifying him by his real name.
He did it all for the nookie, yeah the nookie.
The case exploded on April 20, when a bulletin board manifesto against Bronze Mustache was published by someone using the name Spring Azalea.
"We call on every company, every establishment, every office, school, hospital, shopping mall and public street to reject him," it said. "Don't accept him, don't admit him, don't identify with him until he makes a satisfying and convincing repentance."
Impassioned people teamed up to uncover the student's address and telephone number, both of which were then posted online. Soon, people eager to denounce him showed up at his university and at his parents' house, forcing him to drop out of school and barricade himself with his family in their home.
Others denounced the university for not expelling him, with one poster saying it should be "bombed by Iranian missiles." Many others said the student should be beaten or beheaded, or that he and the married woman should be put in a "pig cage" and drowned.
Such peaceful law abiding people these posters.
"Right from the beginning, every day there have been people calling and coming to our house, and we have all been very upset," said the student's father, who was interviewed by telephone but insisted that he not be identified by name, to avoid further harassment. "This is an awful thing, and the Internet companies should stop these attacks, but we haven't spoken with them. I wouldn't know whom to speak to."
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February 10th, 2007
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