Coined on Chinese forums in the mid-2000s. The 'human flesh' part contrasts with machine search: instead of Google, a crowd of netizens pieces together a target's identity from photos, posts, and personal details. Famous early cases include the 2006 'kitten-killer' video and 2008 'Door Killer' incident — both cases helped define the term.
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Now strongly associated with online abuse and privacy violation, often used as part of the term 开盒 (more recent slang for the same activity). PIPL and platform rules officially prohibit it.
