China Wants To Block “Human Flesh Search Engine”

On May 21st the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) internal magazine “Hong Qi Wen Gao” published an article which stated that “Constitutionalism is a characteristic of Capitalism, not Socialism”. This opinion triggered a public outcry in China, and has become a sitting duck for critics. Someone noticed that another article in the same volume reacted against the “human flesh search engine”, stating that “Human flesh search engine is a type of tyranny by the majority and is an invasion of privacy”. However, some argued that as Chinese civilians are not protected by Constitutionalism, “human flesh search engine” turns out to be their only weapon to supervise the CCP so it should not be taken away.
The CCP’s internal magazine, Hong Qi Wen Gao, published an article titled “Is Human Flesh Internet search engine allowed in western countries?” The article said “Human flesh search engine” is a unique phenomenon only seen in China, and it is “a type of tyranny by the majority”. It also drew the conclusion that “Human flesh search engine” can easily lead to invasion of privacy or even spreading of Internet violence.

Yang Hengjun, a Chinese Internet writer and scholar, said in western countries the framework of Constitutionalism provides civilians a path to seek legal redress. As there is no Constitutionalism in China, Chinese civilians can only address their injustices on the Internet.

Yang Hengjun, Chinese Internet writer and scholar: ”It is true that “Human flesh search engine” is only seen in China. However, this is because there is no supervision over political power in China. Our civilians don’t have any standard way to seek justice, which is available in western countries. There you have judicial system, freedom of speech and freedom of demonstration/protest. In China we don’t have these rights so the only choice is to expose bad officials online.”

Hong Qi Wen Gao’s article also mentioned in the US where the Internet is extremely developed, there have been very few cases involving “Human flesh search engine”. In the United States, protection of privacy and personal data is regarded as a very important issue. Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and other laws have been established to inflict punishment against invasion of privacy in cyberspace.

However, Yang Hengjun pointed out that, the possession and behavior of western public figures such as officials and presidents of listed companies are subject to public supervision as required by law. They cannot use “protection of privacy” as an excuse to hide this information.

Yang Hengjun: ”Chinese civilians do “Human Flesh Search” on officials because their tobaccos and watches cannot be afforded by them at their announced salary level. Our people feel that they should know where the real income of officials is from. In fact “Human flesh search engine” later confirmed that those officials were corrupt. This is not about privacy. The officials have to declare their properties.

This is a rule that has been put into practice long before in Constitutional and democratic states.”

Yang Hengjun added that, the two articles by Hong Qi Wen Gao altogether exposed the dilemma that the CCP is facing.

Yang Hengjun: ”On one hand, they (the CCP) deny Constitutionalism and stick to their own regime. On the other hand, they are not able to solve the resu problem. That is, without a framework of Constitutionalism they can never prevent officials from corruption. In such situation, the civilians have to act like ‘unruly people’ or ‘mobs’. Why? As you don’t want to reform the regime and solve the corruption problem, then I can only respond with ‘Human Flesh Search’.”

Yang Hengjun explained that, “Human flesh search engine” is not popular in western countries, because there is Constitutionalism to rely on. Therefore civil rights are protected and powers of governmental officials are restricted. The CCP denies Constitutionalism, but still tries to deprive Chinese people of their only rights of Internet supervision.

Yang further remarked that, there was a “muckraker movement” in the United States the before Internet appeared. In the movement the journalists were actually doing the same as “Human flesh search engine”, but more professionally. The Lewinsky scandal involving former US president Bill Clinton and Watergate scandal involving Richard Nixon can both be regarded as results of using “Human flesh search engine”.

Yang Hengjun wrote a microblog article to refute what Hong Qi Wen Gao said. He wrote that, for some officials and their hired scribblers, whenever they found anything in western society in favor of their regime, they would advocate “full westernization as soon as possible”or even make intimidating comments; For any western system that challenges their unlimited power, they would deny them with the excuse of “keeping Chinese characteristics”; This was not the first time they did so, and would definitely not be the last time.

Yang Hengjun said that, in the past five years Chinese netizens dug out many corrupt officials by “Human Flesh search engine”. Even procuratorates and anti-corruption bureaus have to acknowledge its effectiveness. So shouldn’t the CCP officials ponder over the phenomenon and find out the differences between Chinese and western regimes that lead to the problem?

– Source: NTDTV news