The South Korean police used water canons during protests against the import of U.S. beef. As a result of the protests, the South Korean government wants restrictions on the Internet, which was used to organized the demonstrations. (Jo Yong hak/Reuters)
South Korean government looks to rein in the Net
By Michael Fitzpatrick Published: September 7, 2008
TOKYO: The South Korean government is pursuing a series of restrictions on Internet use to prevent what the embattled administration of President Lee Myung Bak calls the spread of false information that prompts social unrest.
Under the proposal, all forum and chat room users will be required to make verifiable registrations using their real names. In addition, the Korea Communications Commission would make it mandatory that Web sites took down for 30 days articles that received complaints for being fraudulent or slanderous.
During that time, the Korean Communications Standards Commission, the country's media arbitration body, would rule on whether to allow the article to be published again.
Regulators have not worked out what penalties violators would face.
This is not the first time South Korea has attempted to rein in the Internet, said Robert Koehler, an English-language blogger on Korea based in Seoul.
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"Even under progressive presidents like Roh Moo Hyun, police blocked pro-North Korean Web sites, demanded pro-North Korean postings be erased and even arrested two activists for - among other things - downloading 'The Communist Manifesto,"' he said.
"It should also be pointed out that the government's charge - that there's a lot of misinformation being spread on the Net, and that this can cause major social problems - is not completely without merit, even if the government needs to be careful in the manner in which it approaches the issue."
The conservative government, led by Lee, was buffeted by recent mass protests over U.S. beef imports that were organized and incited over the Internet. The government blamed the disruptions on rumors and lies propagated by Internet users, and accused service providers of failing to police its content and of providing a platform for hate, libelous claims and cyberbullying.
The president said the measures were designed to ensure accountability for actions taken online and defended the proposal as checks against "a society rampant with excessive emotional behavior, disorderliness and rudeness."
The country has to guard against "a phenomenon in which inaccurate, false information is disseminated; prompting social unrest that spreads like an epidemic," Lee said during a recent speech.
The bill which, is being prepared by the governing party, will be submitted to the regular session of the National Assembly in November.
The proposals in South Korea follow discussion of similar measures in Japan, where a government panel has recommended requiring Internet service providers, or ISPs, to enforce certain controls. The governing party is seeking to have the regulations enacted by 2010.
Critics say Tokyo is not only interested in curbing bad Internet behavior but also wants to censor what it considers controversial or critical sites.
"The Internet threatens the government, but the new law will put the government back in control by making the ISPs directly answerable to the government," said Kazuo Hizumi, a human-rights lawyer in Tokyo. "This is the untenable position we are facing in Japan."
"By all means bring in some control, but let the providers do it and let the government act through an independent body; not the LDP," he said, referring to the governing party.
China, meanwhile, continues to deny access to some foreign-based Web sites, and employs surveillance systems and data mining.
An army of Internet police watch the content circulating within China, which has most Internet users in the world. But Internet-based companies do much of the work, checking rigorously for political content, according to Rebecca MacKinnon professor of new media at the University of Hong Kong.
"There are a lot of people in China who don't realize how much political censorship there is until they try to find, say, information on human rights," she said. "It just isn't there."
Nor does the government require its own omnipresence to curb dissent on the Web. Self-censorship fulfills this role, too, she said.
"It's the companies that control China's Web, policed by company employees," MacKinnon said. "The police keep an eye out for those companies who don't follow the rules. Those found trying to organize political opposition on the Net aren't just censored in China - they go to jail."
In response to the threat of the measures in South Korea, the largest Korean portal, Naver, said it would drop all news from its front page. Its rival, Daum, has offered an olive branch to old media. Daum says it will share revenue from its banner advertisements on news stories with newspapers, television and other media outlets providing the articles.
Lee Han Ki, the editor in chief of OhmyNews, the biggest citizen-journalist portal in South Korea, suggested that the new president would fail to put South Korea's willful Internet genie back into the bottle."The proposed legislation will not only hinder free speech by Korean netizens but seems to be aimed at controlling the public opinion of Internet news media," Lee said. "Such measures would not help to promote the democratic development of the Korean press and could end up turning back the Internet clock in Korea."
