MOP Hunts Pornographers
Quite a few blog posts here fit the following paradigm: An outrageous event occurs somewhere in China. Someone posts a description of the event at a Chinese Internet forum. A storm of passion is generated as the "human search engines" dig up the personal particulars of the culprits of the event and publish that information. A harassment campaign (e.g. telephone calls, threats, etc) is conducted to insure that 'justice' is served. Mind you, the culprits are not necessarily guilty of breaking any law. Usually, it is some alleged moral turpitude or depravity.
Here are some examples from the past 3 months:(August 1, 2006) Another Internet Manhunt for A Cat Killer
(July 17, 2006) A New Mother Leaps To Her Death
(June 29, 2006) My Dad Is Worse Than Ximen Qing
(June 4, 2006) The Affair At Beijing Foreign Studies University
(April 26, 2006) Secretary PK Boss
(April 17, 2006) The Most Famous Pervert in China
So this is yet another example in the list. However, there is something particularly disturbing in this case, even worse than the case of the lady who crushed kittens to death with her high-heel stiletto shoes.
First, this case feeds right into the anti-Japanese sentiments that are flaming up in China right now due to more stories about the Yakusuni shrine and the Diaoyutai islets. It does not help that the story yesterday was The Three Alls, in which a Japanese company applied for a trademark of Sanguang in China, wherein Sanguang is the name of the Japanese army's Three Alls scorched-earth policy in China to "burn all, kill all, loot all." Then this morning, Vicky Zhao was rumored to be the new spokesperson for an anti-Japanese online game and this was deemed to be totally unacceptable because she once wore a Japanese military flag. This case, though, will top all of the above in terms of inflamming passions.
Second, this case involves the issue of exploitation of young Chinese female students by unknown Chinese persons in order to satisfy the voyeuristic desires of Japanese pornography lovers. Now that the background is laid out in such stark terms, you can see why this is volatile. You are warned that there will be a bunch of photographs in the following. The purpose here is to show you how the Chinese netizens are using all the available information to hunt down the perpetrators.
Third, this is a case in which laws may have been broken (and a lot worse than Kiddie Porn In Hong Kong). So the question is why is it up to a group of spontaneously organized netizens to act as sleuths on behalf of public interest? Where is the public security bureau? or the famous Internet police officers Chacha and Jingjing?
MOP is a popular Internet forum usually known as the "best entertainment site." However, its netizens are also proud to be known as the "human flesh search engines." The infamous case of the cat-crushing woman was solved largely by MOP netizens identifying the details in the published photos and films as well as Internet forensics, and then asking people near the right locations to conduct field investigation.
Usually, the campaign begins with the issuance of a MOP warrant. The headline for this one is:
"Wanted: the criminal organzation that enticed under-aged girls at a martial arts school to pose for pornographic photographs."
Here is the summary of the case (see 笑忘红尘's post at MOP; Wenxue City):
A group of young girls between the ages of 8 and 15 years old entered a certain martial arts school and was enticed by a certain criminal organization to pose for the pornographic photographs. These photographs were then brought over to Japan for sale. For the price of US$15, these photographs can be purchased. The MOP netizens have now established that these photographs were taken in the city of Zhengzhou, Henan province. We asked the netizens to continue to provide clues to us so that we can find the black hands behind the scene.
The following photographs were taken from the website www.bikinikungfu.com. The text is in Japanese. The website appears to be down at this time.
The following shows how the MOP manhunt is progressing. This involves scrutinzing the photographs that were originally posted at MOP in May this year and then examining the details for clues.
Clue Number 1:
In this outdoor photograph, there is an unusual building in the background, which looks to have a pyramid-shaped body with a small inverted pyramid at the acme. The building has been identified as the Henan Provincial Museum in Zhengzhou City. In the following online map, we see the Henan Provincial Museum (in red letters), next to the Provincial Sports School (inside the red star).
An aerial image is then brought in and it can be deduced that the photograph was taken on the red-brick pavement to the northeast of the musuem sometime during the morning (note: the top of the photograph is the south and the bottom is the north).
Clue Number 2:
In this indoor photograph, there is a shot of the outside world through the window. Focusing on the window, there are two tall red-colored buildings. The following photograph is taken from an official Zhengzhou government website. Note the two tall red-colored buildings in the background.
It remains for someone to go out to the location and locate the exact room from which the photograph was taken by comparing the angle to the smaller building right in front in the photograph below.
(Huashengbao via Wenxue City)
A netizen has identified the backgruond as Xian city near the Tu Men. "The photograph was taken looking southwards. The building with the yellow stripes belongs to a certain technology school. The two buildings behind it are the classroom buildings for the school. The road in the middle is West Ring Road Number Two. The overpass ovre the road can be seen further down, next to the tall residential buildings." The netizen deduced the photograph must have been taken from a higher floor of the Tianyi Hotel.
The reporter went out there and found the conditions to be true. In order to capture this scene, it can only be filmed from one of the higher floors of the Tianyi Hotel. The reporter went into one of the southwards facing suites and found everything: the black window frames, the style of the frames, the handrail, the color of the carpet, ... everything was identical to the photograph.
The manager on duty at Tianyi Hotel said that they were unaware of any such photography; if they did, they would have called the public security bureau.
Clue Number 3:
In one of the photographs, the uniform worn by one of the girls has the words 武校 ("Martial arts school") and the single word "博".
As I questioned before, why is this left up to netizens? Where are the vaunted Internet police? There are 30,000 of them and none of them saw or heard anything at one of the most popular forums in China? If they noticed it, then why has there been no action?
