Rage Expressed on the Internet in China

In December, the Chinese driver of a BMW sports car was given a suspended sentence for plowing into a crowd after "a brush with a tractor", killing a woman and injuring twelve other people. According to this article, "the ruling has triggered one of the biggest outpourings of internet rage ever seen in China. One of the country's most popular web portals, Sina.com, received some 200,000 postings on the subject in ten days." This outpouring was possible in part because some 80 million people in China are now regular internet users, nearly 35% more than in 2002. The article goes on to consider the effect of such Internet-based concerns with judicial findings, and the reform of the Chinese judiciary system. Knowledge in cyberspace confronts legal knowledge.

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