Key Tip: Under the continuous questioning and verification of netizens, the much talked-about South China Tiger photo incident has finally been resolved. The 8-month "tiger hunting" journey of netizens, on a superficial level, uncovered a fake tiger; however, from a deeper perspective, it is not hard to see that democratic participation is relying on the unique advantages of the internet to complete the historical mission of promoting government transparency and advancing social democracy.
If the tiger were three-dimensional, when the photographer shifts from a frontal to a side angle, the distance between the tiger's eyes should appear shorter and the distance from the hind legs to the head should appear longer.
However, in the two photos I collected, both distances appear shorter, and they shorten at the same proportion. This situation can only occur with a flat tiger. Therefore, it can be concluded that the tiger is a flat paper tiger.
—Wu Shizhu Yi
Tiger Photo Exposed: Collective Victory of Netizens
On June 29, the Shaanxi provincial government held another press conference regarding the South China Tiger photo incident, revealing that the tiger photos were fake and hunter Zhou Zhenglong had been arrested for suspected fraud. Eight months prior, on October 12, 2007, the Shaanxi Forestry Department first published two photos of the South China Tiger taken by Zhou Zhenglong. Over these eight months, a large group continuously questioned and verified the authenticity of the tiger photos, gradually unraveling the mystery behind the South China Tiger photos. This group was composed of netizens.
Yang Jianshun, professor at Renmin University of China School of Law and doctoral supervisor, told our reporter that the revelation of the fake tiger's true form represents the victory of netizens, public opinion, and democracy.
In fact, immediately after the Shaanxi Forestry Department published the South China Tiger photos on October 12 last year, there was an uproar among netizens who quickly started posting threads and blogs questioning the authenticity of the photos.
Netizen Wu Shizhu Yi used principles of perspective geometry to rationally and convincingly question the two tiger photos provided by Zhou Zhenglong from different angles. "If the tiger were three-dimensional, when the photographer shifts from a frontal to a side angle, the tiger's eye distance should appear shorter, and the distance from the hind legs to the head should appear longer. However, the two photos I collected show that both distances are shortening, and they are shortening at the same proportion." Wu Shizhu Yi illustrated this with detailed calculations and processes on his Sina blog. "This indicates that the tiger's eyes and the texture of its hind legs lie on the same vertical plane. Such a situation can only occur with a flat tiger."
Other netizens calculated based on the size of leaves in the photos, concluding that "if the tiger photo were genuine, according to the proportions, the tiger in the photo would only be as big as a rat in real life," and so on. Under the impetus of the internet, the South China Tiger photo incident became widely known, with questions about the authenticity of the tiger photos rising one after another.
"The internet has the advantages of free participation, anytime participation, and group participation. Any citizen here can freely express their opinions and fully exercise their democratic rights," Yang Jianshun believed. Moreover, traditional media's follow-up reporting on the doubts raised by netizens formed a new path for democratic participation, prompting relevant departments to seriously review the tiger photo incident.
Subsequently, the appearance of the original prototype of the South China Tiger photo, which turned out to be a New Year painting tiger, once again confirmed the irreplaceable role played by the internet in democratic participation. In response to various doubts, relevant government departments in Shaanxi Province repeatedly stated that the tiger photo was genuine. In response, netizens swiftly took action to verify the truth.
The first person to publicly disclose the New Year painting tiger was netizen Xiaoyu Bobobo. One month and four days after the Shaanxi Forestry Department first announced the South China Tiger photo, Xiaoyu Bobobo uploaded the New Year painting tiger to the Chinese photography website "Colorless Photography Without Restraint," naming the post "Human Flesh Engine Search Results, Please Look at the Suspected Tiger Prototype Sent by Friends from Panzhihua, Sichuan." Prior to this, Xiaoyu Bobobo had posted clues soliciting posts on major websites like Tianya, and the New Year painting tiger was found by an unknown netizen who saw the clue-soliciting post and then contacted Xiaoyu Bobobo.
"After uploading the first (New Year) tiger to the Colorless Photography Without Restraint website, I tried to upload the second and third ones but couldn't access the site," Xiaoyu Bobobo recalled. The post quickly garnered over 300,000 clicks. According to incomplete statistics, the total number of clicks on the entire post and its reprints exceeded 100 million.
Before Guan Ke, director of the Information and Publicity Center of the Shaanxi Forestry Department, could question the authenticity of the New Year painting tiger, netizens once again activated the "human flesh search" function of the internet, using information such as the "8301" code in the lower left corner of the New Year painting tiger, they found the producer of the New Year painting, Zhejiang Yiwu Weisite Company, obtained the contact details of the company manager Luo Guanglin, confirmed that the company indeed produced the New Year painting tiger, and even found the New Year painting tiger that had already been uploaded to the internet in 2005. The entire process took approximately only two hours.
After obtaining the New Year painting tiger, netizens used "ruler grids" to compare the lying posture of the tiger in the photo and the New Year painting tiger, finding astonishing similarities. At this point, the "tiger hunters" among the netizens were ready to declare victory.
Yang Jianshun expressed that the victory of the netizens' "tiger hunting" sounded the alarm for the government: when making decisions or statements, the government should widely listen to public opinion and promote democracy. "To be honest, (the government's) investigation of Zhou Zhenglong was actually not very transparent. But regardless, it was still a step in the right direction." Faced with the investigative decision announced by the Shaanxi provincial government on June 29, netizen Xiaoyu Bobobo did not feel the excitement he imagined.
National Network Participation: Enhancing Democratic Literacy Through Free Debate
Looking at the entire process of exposing the tiger photo, it is not difficult to see that netizens did more than just uncover a fake tiger.
In the tiger photo incident, the "tiger hunters" and the "pro-tiger supporters" went from fierce opposition to the pro-tiger supporters eventually switching sides, and network debates and discussions played a crucial role. Jiang Ming'an, professor at Peking University School of Law and doctoral supervisor, told our reporter that this process is a new form of democracy called deliberative democracy.
Compared to the traditional parliamentary democracy characterized by minority obedience to the majority and voting, the greatest advancement of deliberative democracy lies in: through speaking, everyone can express their opinions, different opinions are subject to common debate, and correct opinions defeat wrong ones through debate. "Parliamentary democracy is a form of indirect democracy, with certain limitations; deliberative democracy is a participatory democracy, an effective supplement to parliamentary democracy."
Currently, except for the internet, no other medium can accommodate everyone expressing their opinions and participating in debates. Jiang Ming'an believes that the internet has made deliberative democracy a reality. "The South China Tiger incident promoted the national understanding of the role of freedom of speech and enhanced the democratic and legal literacy of the people through free discussion and debate."
"The rational seriousness of netizens in the South China Tiger incident also strongly supervised the behavior of relevant government departments. If it weren't for the persistence of netizens, the South China Tiger photo incident might have ended without resolution," Jiang Ming'an added. Despite the delayed investigation results, they still reflect the increasing importance placed by our government departments on the power of the internet and respect for the voices of netizens.
Yang Jianshun holds the same view: "The government is providing a broader space for public participation in social life." To expand the scope of netizen participation, Jiang Ming'an further suggested: "For significant government decisions, as long as they do not involve confidentiality breaches, it is necessary to solicit opinions online, such as the south-to-north water diversion project, subway construction, oil price increases, etc. These decisions mostly relate closely to the lives of the public, so seeking public opinions is especially important."
During the interview, Jiang Ming'an specifically mentioned the issue of local government red-headed documents, believing it is very necessary for them to go online to be inspected for legality and feasibility. "I've encountered some red-headed documents that were themselves illegal. If we add the step of netizen evaluation, I think many embarrassing situations wouldn't happen."
Network Human Flesh Search: Multiple Balances Between Personal Privacy, Freedom of Speech, and Public Opinion Supervision
In recent years, participating in social event discussions has become one of the main activities for many netizens browsing forums. Before the "South China Tiger Incident," news such as "pregnant woman's death" had also been hot topics online. Netizens' enthusiastic participation in discussions, whether for defending rights, upholding justice, or venting frustrations, are all freely expressed without any constraints. Regarding this, Liu Deliang, Director of the Network Law Research Center at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, pointed out: "The internet is a double-edged sword. While its almost magical power influences the development of society, it inevitably brings negative effects along with the good."
"Online heated discussions ensure citizens' right to know, promote public participation in and supervision of social events. In the case where the husband refused to sign the surgery consent form leading to the pregnant woman's death, netizens' discussions exposed the current state of strained doctor-patient relationships, and the debates drove the improvement of related systems. However, internet mobilization does not always produce positive effects. For instance, the rise and use of 'human flesh search engines,' due to blind following by some netizens, lead to misuse of information, resulting in occasional occurrences of malicious defamation and invasion of privacy in the form of cyberbullying," Liu Deliang said.
It is understood that human flesh searches refer to a network mechanism involving massive manual participation to find answers to questions. For example, based on a single clue, a photo, a video scene, a username, or even a QQ number, netizens exchange information to track down the real name, address, and workplace of the person in question. In the "tiger hunting" incident, human flesh searches played a very important role.
In 2008, those witnessing the explosive growth of human flesh searches were not only people involved in the South China Tiger incident but also individuals such as husbands betraying their wives, and Liaoning girls showing disrespect towards earthquake victims in Sichuan. Once their personal information was disclosed by netizens, their lives were disrupted; some resigned, others dropped out of school...
According to a survey conducted recently by the China Youth Daily, among 2,491 respondents, 79.9% believed that human flesh searches should be regulated, 65.5% thought that human flesh searches could become a new outlet for venting frustration and retaliation, and 64.6% believed it violated personal privacy, while 20.1% worried they might become targets of such searches.
So, what exactly is privacy? For such an ancient concept, Liu Deliang believed it was necessary to reassess it: "Privacy is a type of personal information; only those pieces of information whose disclosure would damage the subject's dignity or lower their social evaluation qualify as privacy."
Then, does publishing personal information necessarily constitute an infringement?
"If information is not known by anyone, how can its value be reflected? Transparency is the nature of information. Therefore, I believe that publishing someone else's name, portrait, address, phone number, workplace, and other personal information based on freedom of speech and public opinion supervision is legal and justified, and does not constitute an infringement," Liu Deliang said. The harm caused to the person being disclosed is not from the act of publishing the information itself, but from subsequent misuse of that personal information, such as harassment via phone calls.
"Many people confuse the act of publishing personal information with the subsequent misuse of that information, believing that names, portraits, addresses, phone numbers, workplaces, and other personal information belong to individual privacy and must be absolutely prohibited from publication. This view is extreme and incorrect. Imagine if we followed this line of thinking, the public's freedom of speech would become empty rhetoric, and basic social moral standards would face the risk of non-compliance due to lack of public opinion supervision."
Liu Deliang proposed distinguishing between the act of publishing information and subsequent misuse of that information: Publishing someone else's name, portrait, address, phone number, workplace, and other personal information based on freedom of speech and public opinion supervision is legal, justified, and necessary; only the unauthorized publication of sexual information, nude photos, and other personal information directly related to dignity may infringe on privacy. "Regardless of the type of personal information, it must not be misused."
Finally, what should the law do regarding human flesh searches and cyberbullying issues?
"Legislation should recognize the right of individuals not to be harassed by phone or mail, the right to live undisturbed, and the right not to be tracked, adhering to the principle and boundaries of adjusting social relations."
One month and four days after the Shaanxi Forestry Department first announced the South China Tiger photo, Xiaoyu Bobobo uploaded the New Year painting tiger to the internet, naming the post "Human Flesh Engine Search Results, Please Look at the Suspected Tiger Prototype Sent by Friends from Panzhihua, Sichuan." According to incomplete statistics, the total number of clicks on the entire post and its reprints exceeded 100 million.
On July 11, a Baidu search for "Xiaoyu Bobobo" returned 101,000 related web pages, featuring support, opposition, personal attacks... The past lively scenes came vividly back to mind (Authors: Xu Ridan, Xu Yingyan)
This article comes from Xinhua News Agency: http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2008-07/14/content_8541948_1.htm