?"Girls, let's unite and fight against wolves till the end"
is the slogan of a newly-opened anti sex-offender website. In order
to raise awareness among females, the website encourages netizens
to post the name and photo of any sexual harassers they have
discovered. Of course, doing such thing has aroused
controversy.
?
Although less than two months old, the website already contains
over 10 thousand registered members with over a hundred new
messages posted daily.
The website's most important feature is the list of sexual
harassers compiled by website members. The founder of the website,
whose online name is Caspar, says her original idea for opening the
site was to raise awareness of the need for self-protection among
females, following sexual harassment of one of her female friends.
By naming and shaming them online, Caspar says there will be
nowhere for these sex maniacs to hide.
For example, one post saying that a teacher at a famous
university in Shanghai raped several students has generated a great
deal of response from the website's visitors. Besides voices of
indignation, many also express suspicion.
The website's weakness is that it cannot guarantee the
truthfulness of its claims.
Furthemore, lawyer Qiu Baochang says websites should not be able
to publicize other people's personal information without
permission. "To post others' detailed personal information is not
within the rights of a website. So a website like the
anti-sex-offender alliance could be found in violation of others'
basic rights."
If the website cannot guarantee that all information posted is
true, it will be partly responsible for the infringement of rights.
Though its original intention is to protect women's rights, at the
same time, the website violates the rights of another group of
people.
The website contains vastly opposing views.
"If the law hasn't been able to regulate these sex offenders, I
think exposing them to the public is good way to make them feel
guilty and see there is nowhere to hide."
"Though these people are offensive, I don't think posting their
names or photos online is a good solution, because it violates
their right to privacy and ruins their reputation."
According to the website founder, the site's ultimate goal is to
collect information on 500 sexual offenders from netizens and then
send it to related legal departments. While with very few posts
providing detailed and true information, it will almost be
impossible for the website to achieve its original goal.
(CRI November 8, 2006)