While the Internet is occasionally touted as a forum for free expression without restriction, 99.9 percent of people accept the reality is somewhat different. For instance, snuff movies, images of pedophilia, and Web videos of teens being beaten up and degraded by their peers are regarded as totally unacceptable.

Let law take its course to keep the Web clean.[File photo]

There is a way of dealing with this issue. Instead of taking the moral high ground and censoring content, let the law do its work. No one in their right mind wants this type of media content on the Web, where it can become a source of copycat violence.

A case in point is the latest in a long series of "Very Yellow, Very Violent" (很黃，很暴力) videos that features an apparently pregnant Guangdong student being hit around by a group of camera phone-wielding teens.

Though popular among the Web watching public, most hosting sites have voluntarily removed the disturbing 2 minute and 45 second video, which shows the young woman holding her belly while being kicked, punched and verbally abused.

While mob.com helpfully provides stills from the encounter, along with an editorial describing what happened, it is framed in such a way as to focus attention on the people who form a human flesh search engine to hunt down the guilty parties.

"Very Yellow", by the way, refers to sexually-related material (like Western "blue" movies) and in the uploaded films in question, they typically show a young woman passively accepting the violence meted out by girls of around the same age, and often lead to partial or full nudity. Recording it compounds the violence, as the victim is publicly humiliated.

In another case, from late last year, a female student dubbed "Sister Bear" slaps and kungfu-kicks a "schoolmate" in front of her leering friends, as they film the action on their phones. Public exposure of the video led to a human flesh search engine hunt that ended up with demonstrations outside the school in Shanghai and calls for punishment against the perpetrator - who was suspended from school.

While it is tempting to believe this kind of mob justice is righteous, especially when the original crime is not dealt with, it could easily lead to innocent people being held responsible and punishments getting out of hand. It's a form of retrogression, not a sign of Internet enlightenment.

Britain, in the 1990s, had to deal with this issue, after a popular advert for a soft drink featured a fat orange man who crept up and slapped people who partook of the fizzy beverage. It led to teens imitating the fat orange man and in some cases perforating the eardrums of the unfortunate victims.

It was called "happy slapping" and proved to be anything but. It spread across Europe, morphing into school ground violence that was captured on camera phones and disseminated on the Web. The term was then used to cover any form of violence or sexual misdemeanor that was captured on video. Now, those who film the action are held culpable and punished, while those who host the videos can also be held responsible for their actions.

It would seem to be a reasonable way of dealing with this sort of behavior. Instead of being a case for censorship, it becomes a matter of applying the law when it is broken. Anyone crass or stupid enough to commit such an act, film or host it, will thereby provide evidence of the crime and should suffer the consequences.