New Law says no to "human flesh" search

New Law says no to "human flesh" search

english.cntv.cn

The newly enacted Tort Liability Law grants legal rights to people whose reputation or privacy has been damaged by online character assassination. It also holds Internet service providers accountable if they are aware of malicious intent of anonymous attackers, but fail to stop the infringement.

"Human flesh" search is a loose term to define thousands of anonymous Internet users who work together as self-styled detectives. They track down and harass people they disagree with by exposing their personal information online.

(visit the link for the full news article)

With the recent Facebook security scandal and ever increasing stories of people being attacked online, China passes a new law designed to protect privacy rights.

A step too far or one in the right direction as we lay our lives out to bare through social networking?

Has anyone on ATS fallen victim to such privacy infringements?


english.cntv.cn
(visit the link for the full news article)

I think it is a step in the right direction. People have their right to privacy, and there is no need to have a person's life online for all to see, or to steal an identity, or for someone to seek revenge on someone and quite possibly kill them.

In Canada we are lucky, we have really strict privacy laws in most provinces. People are capable of doing really nasty stuff to other people, and if all their info is laid out online, it just makes it too easy for nasty people to do nasty stuff.

Yes, i agree with this law. 4chan is well known for doing this to people...usually folks who bite off more than they can chew in all honesty. But it's still despicable imo. If some people ganged together and decided to track my online activity im sure they could release a lot of private things about my life, i even hate people posting pics of me on their face book etc never mind exposing private conversations with close 'friends' online...as close as you can get without meeting the person in real life anyway. Social networking sites have far more negatives than positives imo, you hear stories of kids committing suicide because of online bullying through these all the time, because it is open to hundreds of people the humiliation is far worse than the normal sort of bullying we used to experience at school.

[edit on 2-7-2010 by Solomons]

1) the information is available elsewhere, and they are the ones who posted it.
2) its the persons duty/responsibility to secure that information themselves. not the governments.


you dont have a right to a reputation. a reputation is earned.

the right to privacy is not broken if:
a) you forfeit said privacy yourself (posting it on public domain)
b) the site is not secure and/or has coding errors.


and is this article more or less directed @ Anon? because the way its worded it sure sounds like it.

i hear they are Legion

[edit on 2-7-2010 by LurkerMan]

Originally posted by Solomons
Yes, i agree with this law. 4chan is well known for doing this to people...usually folks who bite off more than they can chew in all honesty. But it's still despicable imo. If some people ganged together and decided to track my online activity im sure they could release a lot of private things about my life, i even hate people posting pics of me on their face book etc never mind exposing private conversations with close 'friends' online...as close as you can get without meeting the person in real life anyway. Social networking sites have far more negatives than positives imo, you hear stories of kids committing suicide because of online bullying through these all the time, because it is open to hundreds of people the humiliation is far worse than the normal sort of bullying we used to experience at school.

[edit on 2-7-2010 by Solomons]

So if you expose a politician's corruption and he loses the next election, I guess he can sue for damaging his reputation, huh?

Does this law also apply to the government like when the FBI ruined Richard Jewell's life by publicly accusing him of being the Centennial Olympic Park bomber? I'm guessing not.

See what I'm getting at here?

reply to post by AntiNWO


Yes i see where you are coming from...a slippery slope indeed. I guess it's more of a problem with society and it's values, thinking it's fine to expose and humiliate people online for 'a laugh' and other juvenile reasons...but i can see where exposing corruption in politicians etc could also fall under this law. Thanks for making me think a bit more about this situation..im not as sure now as i was

Perhaps it's just me, but there is a massive difference between a politician's corruption being exposed and someone deciding they don't like you over something you said, did, or are just accused of having said or done and making it their personal mission to post every single personal detail about you down to your elementary school records online.

Politicians are Public figures who are supposed to be "vetted" to ensure that they are good people. With regard to criminals, I can't see how exposing criminal activity would be the same as publicizing private citizens data online.

Private citizens have the right to remain private. Unless they have been involved in criminal activity. Even then, it should depend what would be posted online. Certain things, such as addresses of family, financial data and similar stuff should be off limits. No reason the family should be placed in possible danger.

I have noticed in the US there are sites that supposedly will find people based on last address, school records, money trails, credit card usage.....That is illegal in Canada. Here the privacy law is already quite close to China's new law. As long as you are a private citizen, only lawyers, and other law officials are allowed to your private data. If it is placed online, or used nefariously, you can sue.

Originally posted by LarryLove


Has anyone on ATS fallen victim to such privacy infringements?

Nope. Those of us who have the sense not to publish our personal information on the internet tend to have no problems.

Originally posted by Jenna
personal mission to post every single personal detail about you down to your elementary school records online.

douchebag move, but how is that illegal? in all probability, you posted it on the internet first, they just googled it.



You kids all fail to grasp the concept that anything you write on the internet, stays there, forever.
You take full responsibility for what you post on the net, "private" websites included.

reply to post by LarryLove

Has anyone on ATS fallen victim to such privacy infringements?

Someone did threaten to track me down and publish that information so that I could be attacked in real life because they didn't like what I had to say, but either they failed or never went through with it. They were temporarily suspended from the forum where they made the threat, but nothing would have stopped them from posting it after the suspension ended.

i hope that they get the JList stuff out before this law ever comes to America.

Originally posted by Happyfeet
douchebag move, but how is that illegal? in all probability, you posted it on the internet first, they just googled it.

If a company is supposed to gain consent prior to gathering personal information, why should some random idiot on the internet be able to do so without doing so?

You kids all fail to grasp the concept that anything you write on the internet, stays there, forever.
You take full responsibility for what you post on the net, "private" websites included.

Not a kid, and grasp that concept better than most, thanks.

If my name is posted online somewhere that doesn't give anyone else the right to hunt down my home address, phone number, credit card numbers, bank account info, etc. and post it all in one place where any criminal with a computer can find it. If my name or other information is posted online somewhere it doesn't mean I put it out there. I didn't put myself in the whitepages.com listing, but I bet I'm in there. I didn't put pictures of myself on my family's facebook pages, but I know I'm on there. I didn't provide direct access to my bank and credit card accounts, but my bank and credit card companies have them hooked right up to the internet. All it takes is a keylogger and my credit and savings are toast.

You seem to be forgetting that not everything posted about you online is stuff that you have put there. That kid you fired probably has a blog where he complains about you doing so and uses your name. The guy who got angry at you for telling him he was being an idiot has your name and picture posted along with why he thinks you're an ass. That girl you broke up with has your name and phone number up somewhere along with a detailed paragraph of how big of an ass you are. And so on and so forth. You could never post a single personal detail anywhere online and someone will eventually get pissed enough at you to do it for you.

Ever tried getting false information and harassing messages about you removed from the website they're posted on? I personally know someone who's trying and it's harder than heck to get it removed because the page it's posted on belongs to someone else. They sure didn't post that stuff anywhere for it to just be googled and gathered.

I laughed hard at china pretending to care about individual privacy, when all they want is more control over the internet.

Originally posted by Solomons
reply to post by AntiNWO

 

Yes i see where you are coming from...a slippery slope indeed. I guess it's more of a problem with society and it's values, thinking it's fine to expose and humiliate people online for 'a laugh' and other juvenile reasons...but i can see where exposing corruption in politicians etc could also fall under this law. Thanks for making me think a bit more about this situation..im not as sure now as i was

Yes, free speech is a complicated issue. Personal integrity plays a huge part in it, however if I had to choose I'd prefer that we keep this very important right and hope that people just take everything they hear with a grain of salt.

I wonder how this is going to affect these data mining companies that sell people's personal information? Aren't there companies now that will sell you people's google searches, tell you what kind of porn they look at, or sell you their phone numbers? I think this is probably a well intended direction that has a potential for governmental abuse as well.
The only problem is that they are probably going to end up going for the little fish and petty online squabbles while the big fish, these data mining companies and god knows what kind of advertising, intelligence, and surveillance agencies will go on about their merry way selling and utilizing people's personal data. The anonimity of the internet is important because it provides a level playing field, probably for the first time in human history. If we let them take that anonimnity in the name of safety-du jour, the internet will regress back to us and them, E-Feudalism.