I find this fascintating.
First, because Chinese people have a lot of anger bottled up inside without many acceptable ways to let it out. It is common to see arguments and fights on the streets in China. It is a scary situation, and now the internet is providing an avenue for them to vent their anger.
Two, because they care about justice but are also hindered by cultural norms which say "It is not my business," and legal norms which say the government decides what is right and wrong.
Third, because it shows the power of peer pressure or corporate culture, which can be used in either a constructive or destructive way.
"It began with an impassioned, 5,000-word letter on one of the country's most popular Internet bulletin boards from a husband denouncing a college student he suspected of having an affair with his wife. Immediately, hundreds joined in the attack.
'Let's use our keyboard and mouse in our hands as weapons,' one person wrote, 'to chop off the heads of these adulterers, to pay for the sacrifice of the husband.'
Within days, the hundreds had grown to thousands, and then tens of thousands, with total strangers forming teams that hunted down the student, hounded him out of his university and caused his family to barricade themselves inside their home.
It was just the latest example of a growing phenomenon the Chinese call Internet hunting, in which morality lessons are administered by online throngs and where anonymous Web users come together to investigate others and mete out punishment for offenses real and imagined."
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