The power of the internet has become painfully obvious to a number of Chinese citizens who have fallen victims to what officials call the 'human flesh search engine’.
The phenomenon sees hundreds of thousands of online users target an individual in order to track them down, sometimes in order to right an action the mob deem ‘wrong’ or simply because their image has gone viral.
It has been described as a vigilante movement, but due to the mob mentality, innocent people have found their lives ruined by being falsely accused of actions they did not commit.
When an image or an event 'goes viral', meaning that it is being shared in large numbers on online social networks within a short space of time, causes are highlighted, news spread instantly and individuals gain momentary fame or end up ‘named and shamed’ across the globe.
In the closed online community of China, where global communication hubs such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter are blocked, these ‘viral’ causes tend to stay within the country’s borders.
Despite official censors, who warned of the phenomenon last month, trying their best to monitor content to delete blog posts and comments that disagree with the hardline communist government, the internet moves too fast even for them.
As China has the world's largest internet population with 591 million users – a number which is expected to increase to more than 750million by 2015 - the 'human flesh search engine' strikes swift and hard and can ruin a person's life in an afternoon.
One recent example is a supposedly innocent taxi driver from the western Chinese city of Urumqi found himself accused of humiliating a homeless person in the street.
When a witness spotted a taxi driver spitting on the elderly man on an Urumqi street, he or she noted the license plate and posted it online urging the 'human flesh search engine' to track the man down and make him pay.
The post called for the responsible taxi driver’s details to be spread all over the internet so he could be ‘extinguished’ and forced out of Urumqi.
Within hours, the online mob had located taxi driver Yin Feng. However, Mr Yin claims he is completely innocent.
‘All of my private information was made public. My ID card number, name, phone number, address, even my mother-in-law's phone number was dug out and posted online,’ Yin told the BBC.
‘I even received phone calls blackmailing me, threatening to burn my house down if I didn't pay them 200,000 RMB (£20,000).’
Another example is that of 'Milk Tea Girl' an innocent high school student whose photograph enjoying a beverage went viral.
Zhang Zetian was snapped by a friend in 2009, after which her image spread on Chinese social networking site Renren.com.
'A newspaper reporter called me one day and suddenly I realised that people had noticed me on the internet,' Zhang told BBC, explaining that she remains an online celebrity several years later and that stalkers even tried to break into her university campus dorm.
'No matter where I go, people attempt to take secret photos of me,' she added.
