A new crime, the ‘cyber insult,' and expansion of the ‘real names system' could stifle freedom of expression in South Korea.

The government will impose punishment against administrators of Internet portals if they do not respond to defamation claims by deleting messages, raising questions about censorship. The move is expected to curb the freedom of expression and undermine the use of the Internet as a positive tool for communication because it could prompt Internet portals to voluntarily remove messages from their Web sites they deem objectionable in order to avoid possible punishment.

In addition, the government plans to expand the “real names system” on the Internet and introduce a new crime, the “cyber insult,” which will allow police to punish Internet users who post messages with defamatory content.

On July 22, the Korea Communications Commission announced a flurry of measures titled, Comprehensive Measures for Information Protection on the Internet, which place heavy penalties on Internet portals for rule violations and expand coverage of the real names system. Under the proposed measures, the operators of Internet portals and peer-to-peer Web sites will be required to immediately remove a message from the site if a third person claims to have been defamed. The operators of the Internet portals and P2P Web sites will be punished if they do not accept the third person's demand.

Coverage of the real names system will be expanded to include Internet portals with more than an average of 100,000 visitors daily. If the measure goes into effect, Internet users will be required to register with their real names in order to log on to small- and medium-sized Web sites, as well as to most of the large portal sites, to post a message or reply. Currently, the real names system is mandatory for Internet portals with more than an average of 300,000 visitors per day and Web sites owned by media companies with more than an average of 200,000 visitors daily.

A draft law pushed by the Korean Communication Commission (KCC), the country's telecommunication and broadcasting regulator, that imposes strengthened identification policies for Internet users is sparking widespread protests from the public and media.

The revised bill mandates all Internet sites with more than 100,000 daily visitors to verify the identities of their users.

This is a stronger version of the current telecommunications law that imposes identity verification for sites with more than 300,000 visitors.

The designated sites require subscribers to submit their private information such as I-PIN, an alternative identification system for online users, and also reveal their real name or register nicknames when they post comments.

Internet companies must disclose the identities of the users accused of cyber attacks when victims seek to sue for libel or privacy infringement.

Following a review by the Regulatory Reform Committee (RRC), the KCC is expecting the revised law to be enforced as early as October.

The KCC hired a group of 10 people, including industry experts and scholars, for a project to research the impact of the strengthened identity verification system. However, despite the group having yet to produce a study, regulators are fast-tracking the bill anyway.

The government, which first introduced the identity verification policy last year, claims that the measures are essential to curb cyber attacks and other 'negative online behavior'.

However, critics argue that the revised law is a strong threat to the freedom of speech on the Internet and could be abused as a tool for censorship.

Another controversial provision of the KCC bill is the mandating of portals to suspend the publishing of articles deemed fraudulent or slanderous for a minimum of 30 days while a media arbitration body rules on the legitimacy of the complaints. For example, should a blogger or online journalist write a post criticizing the government, the new rules will have Web sites immediately pull the articles for a month if they receive a complaint.

Due to the unclear definition of cyber bullying and malicious online messages, there is a danger that authorities might use their power arbitrarily, critics said.

The KCC admits that the identity verification system has so far had a limited impact on curbing cyber bullying since its introduction in July last year, saying that the number of 'malicious' messages reduced by only about 2%.

The suicide of iconic actress Choi Jin-sil has policymakers moving quickly to strengthen identity verification at South Korean websites supposedly to discourage cyber bullying and malicious online messages.

The 40-year-old Choi, one of the country's most popular entertainers of the past two decades, was found dead at her home in southern Seoul in an apparent suicide, and family members and friends claim she had been distressed from harassment on the Internet.

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country's broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, said Internet users will be required to confirm their identity to post comments or participate in online discussions at popular Web sties starting next month.

This means that users will have to type in their resident registration numbers, a 13-digit code that indicates birth date, sex and registration site,  or I-PIN numbers, a personal identification code for online use, to leave messages.

The identity verification system is already mandated to 37 of the biggest Internet portals and online news sites that have more than 200,000 visitors in daily traffic. The KCC is looking to expand the rules to sites with more than 100,000 visitors, whose number currently reaches 178 sites.

The operators of the Web sites will be required to disclose the identities of bloggers accused of cyber attacks on request of police or victims seeking legal action, government officials said.

It could be said that the system will be expanded to virtually all, commonly used Web sites that have message boards,' said Kim Yeong-joo, an official from KCC's network ethics team. Granting approval by the Cabinet, the new regulations will kick in sometime in November, Kim said.

And the KCC plans to rewrite the telecommunications law to mandate Web sites to immediately pull any articles deemed as slanderous for a minimum 30 days before arbitration were subjected to heated debate among lawmakers.

 

South Korea plans to step up its censorship of its social networking sites and smart phone applications.

The Korea Communications Standards Commission said it will reshuffle departments to make way for a 'review' team that will oversee new media content.

The censorship of traditional Internet content has been in place since 2008.

Social media users and civic groups decried the announcement, saying it clamps down on freedom of expression.

This is an authoritarian and anachronistic abuse of power that strips people of their freedom of expression and political freedom by blocking their eyes and ears, one of South Korea's largest civic organizations, People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, said in a news release.

So far internet censorship has been minimal with 45 cases deemed illegal for obscenity this year, along with 159 deemed to have breached national security.

In 2003, South Korea's conservative Grand National Party (GNP) struck back from losing a presidential race by enacting a new law which required online users to verify their real identities before posting comments on election-related web sites. The legislation's stated goals were to to promote responsible online discourse and to protect the privacy of candidates, and it has accomplished its purpose to a limited extent. Yet the greater underlying political motive is clear to see --- the conservative party that relies on older, less internet-savvy Koreans wanted to limit the influence of online media on election results.

In 2007, an election year, the proliferation of anonymous online slander was the stated cause for extending the real-name system to web sites with over 300,000 daily visits.

In 2009, the real-name system was extended to web sites that received over 100,000 web sites per day. As of last year, this law applied to about 150 South Korean web sites.

The government's efforts to control cyberspace have been formidable, but as a result of the real-name policy, South Korean web sites have become prime targets for hacking both from in and outside of the country. The number of hacking incidents reached a momentous level last year, as a series of high-profile cyber-attacks made it clear that the real-name system was untenable --- the most notorious case being SK Communications' SNS Cyworld, which leaked personal information of over 35 million Koreans, more than half of the national population.

The South Korean government also suffered an embarrassment when Google's YouTube refused to comply to the real-name verification system in 2009. Stating that freedom of expression must be upheld on the internet, Google disabled video upload and comment functionalities from users accessing the site within S. Korea. Yet users only had to change their country setting in order to upload and comment on the site again, providing a legal loophole which set-off a wide debate within the country. The incident prompted the KCC to initiate a legal review, and after mulling over whether to punish Google or not, decided to exempt it from the real-name law, which added oil to the fire. Korean companies that have had to comply to the law --- that had incurred web development, monitoring, and security costs --- cited discrimination that put them at a competitive disadvantage to global companies.

On December 30, 2011, the KCC announced that it will phase out the real-name verification system by 2014. This time, web sites that do not remove resident registration IDs and other sensitive information will be fined.

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