China's Human-flesh Search Engines
Human-flesh search engines have become a Chinese phenomenon: they are a form of online vigilante justice in which internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath. The goal is to get the targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, run out of town. It is crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online -- with offline results.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Human-t.html?pagewanted=print
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