We Need The Netizen!

     First, the extreme brilliance must be mentioned in the image use for Anonymous to security firm working with FBI: "You've angered the hive."  The “V for Vendetta” example is fantastic! 

     Now, on to the issue of China’s Human-flesh search engines.  It must be said that I am not some tree-hugging hippie, or PETA supporter, but I found this appalling. 

I knew videos and images like this have been circulating the Internet since its inception, I just chose not to associate myself with such horror.  Videos with content such as:   

A middle-aged Asian woman dressed in a leopard-print blouse, knee-length black skirt, stockings and     silver stilettos standing next to a riverbank. She smiles, holding a small brown and white kitten in her hands. She gently places the cat on the tiled pavement and proceeds to stomp it to death with the sharp point of her high heel.

     Should be policed, removed, and the culprit reprimanded!  I see no issue in demanding an “eye for an eye,” in this form of protest.    Find her and kick her to death like she did to the kitten.  This is only a larger scale of social network stupidity.  Would a hacktivist post this video on their Facebook?  I assume they would.  It offers the same ramifications as drug abuse, naked photos, or binge drinking images.  The only difference is a video posted anonymously is slightly more difficult to trace.  Slightly, meaning it can still be done!  What I find difficult to believe is people’s inability to comprehend that content posted to the Internet can be traced!  Do we need cyber police, or in this article Netizens, in the case of animal abuse, yes!  In this particular case, before even arriving to the issue of mainstream media, I thought, “Doesn’t someone recognize this woman?”  Sure enough, upon further reading, in a country of one billion people,   I know this woman,” wrote I’m Not Desert Angel four days after the search began. “She’s not in Hangzhou. She lives in the small town I live in here in northeastern China. God, she’s a nurse! That’s all I can say.

     Keep in mind I am a huge proponent of Free Speech, but I believe this is going too far!  Some Internet content must be regulated!  While there are some specific, highly sensitive areas where the Chinese government tries to control all information — most important, any political activity that could challenge the authority of the Communist Party — the Western media’s focus on censorship can lead to the misconception that the Chinese government utterly dominates online life. The vast majority of what people do on the Internet in China, including most human-flesh-search activity, is ignored by censors and unfettered by government regulation. There are many aspects of life on and off the Internet that the government is unwilling, unable or maybe just uninterested in trying to control.

     The Netizen may be considered a tattletale, but in my opinion deemed necessary in Eastern as well as Western culture.  Protest is a right, but can sometimes be taken too far.  This form of demonstration is cruel (flesh search engines) and these people should be apprehended and reap the consequences for their actions!