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Cyber Manhunt in Hong Kong

Cyber Manhunt (Chinese起底) in Hong Kong is a term for the behavior of tracking down and exploring one’s private information via internet media. Cyber Manhunt generally involved netizens and be regard as the purpose of cyber judgment and gained notoriety to the target after blame and shame.

Background
Cyber Manhunt is developed from the word ‘Manhunt’. Manhunt is originated to a way of searching background information of an objective person broadly used by police and media. Manhunt was limited in the use of traditional media in 1990s because of technological constraints. However, cyber manhunt became popular in the 20th century. It was started from the ‘Hong Kong Golden Forum’ and thus spread to other social media websites.

The emergence of cyber manhunt was led by the common practice of sharing individual photographs and information on social networks. Owing to the exploitation of cyberspace technology, more and more free social networking websites appear nowadays, (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter…etc.) People are then more willing to share their daily lives on web. This trend highly raises the accessibility of various internet users to one’s personal information. Moreover, revealing others’ privacy without their agreement is illegal but reshipping is not. As people’s personal profile may be easily found on web, it leads to the present prevalent of cyber manhunt. People tend to put forward public trials through cyber manhunt. When there are immoral or unfair issues that may not be possibly handled by law enforcement, such as the ’14-slaps-girl’ and the ‘Bus Uncle’, citizens utilize cyber manhunt to raise public attention. It provides a way for victims to seek justice through the internet and also plays a role in monitoring, as people will be careful of their behaviors in the public to avoid themselves being famous on the internet.

Application of search engine
One of the methods is to make use of search engine to ascertain the information of people. Netizens search the target by using multitudes of search engine, including Yahoo, Google, Baidu, sogou etc. They type the keywords or name of target into the search agents so as to find those related websites, for instance, the social networking sites, private blogs and albums of the target. They are able to obtain the target’s private information by visiting those websites. Eventually they would post and show the information they get to the public through the internet.

Browsing public online platforms
Moreover, there are columns in public online platforms called ‘Column for betraying friends’. Netizens usually post the private information and photos of their friends in these columns, for instance, the telephone number, email, address etc. Other netizens would browse these columns and obtain information which is the act of cyber manhunt. Some of them even criticize those targets in columns violently causing cyber bullying.

Expression of dissatisfaction
Cyber manhunt give the netizens a good channel to let off their anger and dissatisfaction with the society and social phenomenon. Once a conceivable or undesirable subject post on the internet, it will easily trigger anger of netizens .For instance, “Kong girl 500” who rejected the people to come to her wedding with $500 for blessing in her Facebook. She has been exposed most of her personal information and wedding location in the internet. It reveals the dissatisfaction of netizen toward “Kong girl” and money worship.

Acquisition of satisfaction
People have the desire for discourse power which they are not given in traditional media while able to get in the cyberspace. Dennis Wong, the Professor of Applied Social Sciences of City University indicated that cyber manhunt is a behavior that wishes own happiness and satisfaction by causing pain to others. He explained that some netizens obtain happiness and satisfaction via cyber manhunt, and some of them will even seem it as a network game to increase their sense of identity if they can find more information than others.

Sense of justice
Some cyber manhunt was motivated by the sense of justice and some of the netizens use cyber manhunt as a punishment for the individuals who act inappropriately or immorally .There exists many examples of cyber manhunt about moral and ethical issues. For example, some animal abusers have been arrested because of the power of cyber manhunt.

Influences on victims
Victims who suffer trauma from cyber manhunt may leave an indelible imprint worrying about what people browse to them. They also have the chance to get mental and psychological damage. In addition, the most painful thing to victims is that they would continuously search the situation on the net and know how the event goes on. It deteriorates victims’ mental health and may even stimulate them to commit suicide.

Influences on netizens
Some netizens may also endure emotional distress and fear of becoming the next target of cyber manhunt. They do not need to consciously responsible for the action. Therefore, they may criticize others easily. When the cyber manhunt occurs in an uncontrolled situation, some netizens would dread to be the next target.

Related law
The netizens who involve in cyber manhunt or explore other’s private information without permission may violate the following laws.

Universal declaration of human rights
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Personal Data Ordinance
According to the Personal Data Ordinance which has been in 2012, a person commits an offence if the person discloses any personal data of a data subject which was obtained from a data user without the data user’s consent, with an intent to cause loss or gain in other property or cause harm to the data subject.

The netizen will commit an offence if they discloses one’s private information in the internet without consent. However, Joe Lam, the chief executive officer of Discussion forum point out that it is hard to the law as the speed of communication on internet is too fast and it is hard to determine if there any contravention as Cyber manhunt always involve countless netizens.