Kim Hye-jin from Global Voices online has an interesting thread on the National Election Commission (NEC) in Korea and their attempts to censor online discussion of the presidential candidates. According to some, this smacks of dictatorship (link to the Korean):
Frankly speaking, it is insulting people who died for democracy.
Why did citizens and students have demonstrations and march? It was to let people know about corruption in politics. Now it has been developed on-line.
Do we have to get a permit in order to write on the internet?
or as this commenter observes:
. . . they just send a notice, “Your writing violates the election law and therefore it will be deleted.”…. I have doubts about whether Korea is a democratic nation or not.
10 Comments
thats why you get a website registered outside the country, then WTF can they do? They have to block the website.
They already block websites some from outside Korea, it’s been done already. If you want to read the hilarious DPRK “news” site you need to use a procksy! MSINT.
The also block sites related to gambling, false health products and porn.
It’s a problem more for Koreans than anyone else. Most of us know how to use browsers and sites where everything is not written down in Korean. Korean’s don’t.
Media control-happens everywhere.
Keith, my point was: its one thing to delete comments on naver, blocking a website country wide is another…
Good one on the Korean blogger who, with a few smart questions, revealed the extent to which they make up rules as they go, not that I’m surprised. Censorship is arbitrary in nature.
while news media have an obligation to ensure neutrality in reporting (needed with the likes of the Chosun Ilbo around), censoring blogs and online discussion is just plain invasive - its a symptom of State psychosis. Reminds me of that lawyer here who called for my death the other day when I dissed Obama.
cinemagauche, the Chosun Ilbo and Dong A Ilbo are already countered by the bias of KBS and MBC on TV. But, as you pointed out, blog and and other online discussion censorship is invasive.
So disagreement is now “censorship”?
I thought “Zenkimchi”’s comment on the Globalvoices site was interesting:
If this is the case, then this is a matter of legal reform then. Meanwhile, this smells much like the same repression that many 386ers suffered under, thus they should seriously reconsider what their definition of free speech in a democracy is — especially considering the Roh administration’s ideas regarding the media.
Considering the fawning coverage North Korea receives from the South Korean media, one wonders why the government bothers.
I think it’s mostly a Korean Police Agency thing. The Unification Ministry, on the other hand, has talked of lifting the ban.
As for the ban on netizen commentary, well, yes, it’s stupid, but not any more so than the ban on newspapers doing so. Or, for that matter, the president. Just ask President Roh what he thinks about the election law preventing him from making political statements during the campaign period.