At the invitation of the School of Management and Economics, Professor Christy M. K. Cheung of Hong Kong Baptist University delivered an academic report entitled Understanding the Current State of Knowledge and Future Directions of Doxing Research: A Social Cognitive Theory Perspective online at 10 a.m. on April 27, 2023. The lecture was presided over by Professor Li Yangjun, and many teachers and students from the college attended the lecture.
At the beginning of the report, Professor Christy pointed out that the current internet and social media are filled with acts of online violence and harassment, which can have adverse effects on people's physical and mental health and even lead to suicide. At the same time, these behaviors can also have an impact on how people use social platforms. Human flesh search engine, as a special form of cyber violence, refers to a third party's deliberate disclosure of personal information on a public platform for the purpose of insulting, threatening and punishing. The perpetrator disclosed the personal information of the victim through Human flesh search engine, and this information will also be used for subsequent harassment and attacks
In order to reduce this kind of behavior, some local governments have formulated laws and regulations against Human flesh search engine. However, social media platforms may also have an impact on the freedom of speech of the public while complying with relevant regulations. Most of the existing studies are mainly conducted from the legal perspective, focusing on how the external environment affects Human flesh search engine behavior, and lack of research on Human flesh search engine behavior from the perspective of individuals, behavior and social platforms. Therefore, Christy proposed that future research should focus on how people participate in or respond to Human flesh search engine behavior through social platforms, so as to help social platforms better find a balance between regulations and freedom of expression. In addition, Christy further explored the Human flesh search engine behavior in the 2019 anti revisionist incident in Hong Kong as a case. Through the analysis of relevant social media data and interview data of Hong Kong police, Christy revealed the motivation and way of Human flesh search engine of the perpetrators under the background of social movement, and the impact of Human flesh search engine on the victims. The results of the study show that although the perpetrators conduct Human flesh search engine in the name of seeking social justice, this behavior itself continues to be unfair. Finally, due to the adverse effects of Human flesh search engine and the lack of relevant research, future research can focus more on the victim's coping mechanism and how the platform and laws and regulations control Human flesh search engine behavior.
After the report, the attending teachers and students had a positive discussion with Professor Christy, which received a lot of inspiration. The report received a warm response and received unanimous praise from teachers and students.
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Christy M.K Cheung is a Professor of Management Information Systems and theDirector of the Research Office at Hong KongBaptist University.Sheis theawardee of a prestigious fellowship schemeRGC Senior Research Fellow(研局高級研究學者)andobtains HK$7.8million(USD1million)to support her research work on cybermobbing behaviors on social media platforms. Her researchinterests include IT and User Behaviors, Responsible Use of IT, and IT and Societal implications. She has published over 200 refereed articles in internationajournals and conference proceedings, including European Journal of InformationSystems,Information Systems Journal,Information Systems Research, Journal of Information Technology, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, MIS Quarterly and among others. Her workshave been cited around 30000 times and over 9,000 times per Google Scholarand Web of Sciencerespectively, with an h-index of 73 and an i-10 index of 137. She has been recognized to be among the World's Top 2 percent scholars, witha recent ranking of 29th out of 18K scientists in the field of information systems(and ranked 1st among female scientists in the field of information systems). Sherecently ranked 1st among all MIS scholars in Hong Kong on the AIS RankingList. Her academic leadership roles include being the Editor-in-Chief of Internet Research (since 2016). She successfully brought the journal from AJG Level 2 toLevel 3 in 2021. She has also served in many different Senior Editor and Associate Editor roles for several major IS journals, including Decision Support Systems, Information & Management, Information Systems Journal, Information Systems Research,Journal of Association lnformation Systems, and others.
