CARTOON BY LI SHEN

China's human flesh search engine has once again been thrust into the limelight. The system, which originally involved countless netizens tracking down information on any conceivable subject, has gained notoriety after being used to name, blame and shame alleged miscreants. In its new guise the network searching method has been dubbed "cyber manhunt."  

What has brought the issue to public attention again, after it was widely criticized a few years ago, is the fact that the government of Zhejiang Province is drafting a bill to prohibit searching for specific people who have supposedly morally transgressed and bringing them to cyber justice. According to the draft bill, no organization or individual is allowed to release, disseminate, delete or revise personal information on the Internet or similar information system. This bill is regarded as specific legislation against cyber manhunting.

This form of searching is mostly centered on web forums, which typically have a massive following. Of these, www. mop. com is the most popular.

Prime examples of past cyber manhunt incidents are the cases where a man's privacy was exposed to the public because of a blog written by his wife accusing him of an extramarital affair, before she committed suicide, and that of a girl who was viciously condemned and had her life left in tatters for making inappropriate marks about China's 2008 earthquake.

While those who have crossed the moral boundry are punished many innocent victims are also punished. Public debate over this form of searching for people has fired up hot debate. Those in favor maintain that cyber manhunting is an effective way to exercise people's right to supervise members of society. However, others argue that it is unacceptable, because it violates people's privacy and is likely to turn to cyber bullying.