Not yet, but maybe in the next two months South Korea will impose strict legislation on one’s habits on the net. We have discussed anonymity on this site a billion time (trillion?), and no matter which way the conversation goes, all of you still use online pseudo handles. The Guardian reports:
“Internet behaviour in South Korea is somewhat of a low culture. I’m often disgusted or even offended by the manners on the net,” says Dr Youngmi Kim, a professor of sociology and politics at the University of Edinburgh whose research is focusing on issues of governability in Korea, Taiwan and Japan. She is against any outright censorship, but would like to see some sort of campaign encouraging better web manners.
The South Korean government is ahead of her. Along with laws controlling internet postings, which are due to be passed in November, Seoul also plans to introduce internet etiquette and ethics lessons in schools this year for children aged seven and older.
The question is, can you police the internet? British MPs seem to think so. Members of the Commons select committee for culture, media and sport, which has made the case for centralising controls, say they want “a tighter form of self-regulation, under which the industry would speedily establish a self-regulatory body”.
South Korea is going much further. Not only will all sites that publish news be liable to the same restrictions as newspapers, TV and radio, they will be answerable to a government regulatory body – the Korean Communications Standards Commission.
The rules extend beyond websites to individuals. All forum and chatroom users will be required to make verifiable real-name registrations, while internet companies will have to make their search algorithms public to improve “transparency”. Most controversial of all, the commission will be given powers to suspend the publication of articles accused of being fraudulent or slanderous, for a minimum of 30 days. During this period the commission will then decide if an article that has been been temporarily deleted or flagged should be removed permanently.
So what happens when the internet and sites like cVillain become legit and accountable? Would there rise another villainous site (www.villainouscvillain.com) to support the prior cVillains who now hide in fear from the local Charlottesville Police Internet Netiquette Task Force (CPINTF, pronounced cuh-phin-tiff)?
Kate Malay, ex-Villain and new writer for THE EATER series at Uncus says:
“I honest-to-God think there will be some kind of authentication process to account for all of the identity play that takes place,” she says, ” so there’s not so much disparity between real and online personas.”
I guess we could create a club for ex-Villains that can’t handle the internet. But that would take too long and people would know who I really am. F*ck it, I say long live anonymity, it kicks ass.
[pic from Sklathill on Flickr]
Related posts:
- cVillain to sell user data to secret service
- The Need for South Street on Tuesdays
- Popularity on cVillain Boils Down to Genetics
What a bunch of cockblockers. People should always have means of communicating anonymously and freely and not be tracked or punished unless they are breaking serious laws.
whats up with taking the feature spot, you anonymous ass?
Are you talkin to me? Cuz I don’t see nobody else here, so you must be talkin to me.
talkin to villy
if i told you who I was, even if i told you what my online name was, that would break the code, within the code, and the internet would crash
-anonymous
Its it like we have talked about this like 700 billion times. Seems like a nice round number.
i wanted to add trillion, but someone might have asked for a reference check…
Well.
All this talk of “anonymous”, and the use of the mask graphic is just asking for /b/ to come in here and wreak havoc, you know. Your cunning plan, I dont think you have thought it through.
back to the matter at hand… i was thinking of teaching in south korea next year… but if my unalienable right to unbridled internet abuse is going to be infringed upon i might reconsider.
on the other hand, i should probably actually experience south korea rather than live my life on the internet while there. it’s just the principle of it all!
So that photo’s from some group that opposes Scientology, in LA.
1. That’s a funny issue to protest. I mean, they seem really, really against it. And I guess if you’re going to have an issue, that’s a good one. I would agree Scientology is actively bad, so more power to ‘em.
2. What did that photo have to do with the post?
on the other hand, i should probably actually experience south korea–
I vote “experience”. You really can’t go wrong with that. We’ll all still be here (sadly) when you get back and be terribly jealous of your non-virtual world experiences.
Bon voyage!
@10, the group is called anonymous, and they all hide behind masks much like the rest of us on cVillain, except you Stanley, who is Stanley, who is Stanley
@ 10 That “some group” is the so called /b/tards from an image board (4chan) collectively known as Anonymous. They organize against scientology world wide. 4chan is also the origin point for many many internet memes from lolcats to rick rolling. They are the ones who hacked Sarah Palin’s email. The power of /b/ unleashed against a website, institution or individual is crazy. They call the FBI trucks the “4chan party van” which are “not so fun when they pull up at your house”. People often try to get revenge on their enemies by trying to unleash /b/ on them, although they often say that they are “no one’s personal army.”
For the uninitiated who might get curious and want to visit, be forewarned: the talk there is juvenile, cruel, racist, homophobic, misogynist, sociopathic. There is gore, porn of the strangest varieties (amputee furry scat infatilism anyone?) illegal and almost everything is offensive. It is also often funny as hell. You need pretty thick e-skin to visit. I truly cannot stress that enough. Seriously.
I personally am fascinated with it though as, to me, it represents the true face of the internet, and a window to the dark underbelly of humanity. There is a breakdown of social mores when anonymity is granted to large numbers of lunatics. Its like “Ids Gone Wild”. Everyone has their dark internet side – these folks wear it on their sleeve.
I was tempted to tip them to this post, just to see what would happen, but I thought it best to let it lie. Things over there can get fairly out of control pretty quickly. If they can crash MTV’s servers trying to get rick astley a million votes in some contest, spicy bear wouldn’t stand a chance.
Some group in L.A.? Hardly.
Oh, shit, that’s the /b/ crowd? Huh. I was unaware of their meatworld interventions. Interesting.
The also recently hacked Oprah’s message boards when she did a show on internet predators, flooding it with horror. The next day on her show, mistaking the comments to be real, she uttered the quote “over nine thousand penises, and they’re all raping children!”, which is catching on as a bit of a meme.
They also rick rolled the vp debate with signs, dunno if you caught that. Pretty funny.
Still. Tread lightly.
@13: They sound like assholes being assholes just for the sake of it. Please do not unleash them on our happy little blog. This reminds me of a movie I watched the other night: This guy tortured people live on a blog/webcast and the more viewers, the faster the person died. And they told everyone to stop going to the site and helping the person die, but everyone wanted to see what was happening so it killed the person. I thought that said something about the dark underbelly of humanity.
They sound like assholes being assholes just for the sake of it
Precisely. I am not defending them, merely pointing out their existence.
i dont see why they would be upset with this post, it embodies exactly what they do