Doxing in China: The “Human Flesh Search” Phenomenon and Its Criminal Law Regulation

Abstract

Doxing constitutes an important manifestation of online violence, and the assessment of its degree of seriousness is a key issue in the formulation of governance rules. Existing standards based on the quantity of personal information fail to accurately reflect the severity of doxing conduct. From the perspective of the dual-layered legal interest theory, and in light of the mosaic theory, the core problem does not lie in the excessive threshold of quantitative standards, but rather in the fact that a single information-quantity criterion is incapable of capturing the “aggregation effect” among multiple pieces of information and the resulting “structural exposure” of the victim’s identity. Consequently, information quantity cannot function as an appropriate intermediate factor for assessing the infringement of legal interests caused by doxing. Accordingly, the evaluation of legal interest infringement in doxing cases should shift from a purely quantitative approach to a typological analysis, a more operational normative framework for administrative–criminal coordination can be established.