cVillain {soon to be} Banned in South Korea
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.
