Criminal Law Regulation of Human Flesh Search and Lessons from Foreign Experience

Abstract

With the iterative development of network technological tools, “human flesh search” has evolved from scattered individual behavior into organized and industrialized forms of online violence, such as “doxxing and public shaming,” thus posing serious threats to citizens’ personal information rights and interests, human dignity, and even personal safety, becoming a focal point of cyberspace governance. This research, focusing on the criminal law regulation of human flesh search, sorts out the practical dilemmas faced by the application of Chinese criminal law, and proposes plans based on foreign legislative experience, which that China still has application disagreements regarding the criminal law boundary of publicly disclosed personal information, the determination of “serious circumstances,” the application of concurrence of charges, and conditions for exclusion of criminal liability. This paper concludes that publicly disclosed personal information should be subject to typified treatment, the standard of “serious circumstances” should be substantively determined, the logic of concurrence of charges should be clarified, and typified grounds for exclusion of criminal liability should be constructed, thus promoting effective regulation of human flesh search.