It’s not often that a victory for free speech makes me feel dirty… but this one does.
You see, I happened to believe he’s guilty of everything prosecutors are accusing him of.
Frankly, I think the guy’s a schmuck, and representative of larger problems regarding accountability — or lack thereof — in cyberspace.
Still, I do agree with the court’s recognition that online forum are places where anyone can login to write and debate. And really, we’re walking into dangerous territory where we start arresting individual netizens for spreading mistaken information about the government… even when they’re outright lying. And I’ll say it again — guys like Minerva wouldn’t be such a problem if the government and mainstream (read: conservative) press didn’t have so little credibility with large segments of the population.
I’ll cite again to the Wall Street Journal Asia editorial on the matter:
The right to free speech comes with responsibilities. But it’s hard to see how financial commentary — right or wrong — sinks to the level of a reckless shout of “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Prosecutors claim Mr. Park’s comments pushed the won lower and required government intervention. Arguing that Korea’s market is that vulnerable to misinformation from a blogger is probably a bigger blow to national credibility than anything Mr. Park published.
And now the government’s made a hero of the guy… or at least until prosecutors appeal the decision, which they’ve already announced they will.
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The guy was actually right–just wrong about the means of communication the gov’t was using to tell the banks not to buy dollars.
Anyway, another instance of the Prossies beclowning themselves.
Who’s the bigger schmuck? Him or the ones who tried to blame him for Korea’s economic problems?
Arguing that Korea’s market is that vulnerable to misinformation from a blogger is probably a bigger blow to national credibility than anything Mr. Park published.
In Chaos Theory, we call this “sensitive dependence on initial conditions” or more colloquially, “the Butterfly Effect”. It is the notion that a butterfly flapping its wings in China can translate into a hurricane in Texas.
In a way, this Minerva episode relates to the Real Name Verification system, Korea’s status as a “most excellently connected nation in terms of broadband penetration”, the last year’s Mad Cow hysteria, and Dog Poop Girl.
The Dog Poop Girl incident first demonstrated the relative ease and speed with which a mundane cell phone captured video could spread like wildfire and be used to galvanize an instant lynch mob. This phenomenon was repeated during the Mad Cow hysteria, where texting was used to coordinate protests and spread rumors. The government recognized the power of the internet to spark mob dissent and hence the Real Name Verification system. If you combine psychology with the enormous enabling and amplification effects of the web-based social networks, you may have instances of “butterflies” inducing “hurricanes”.
Hence, the Minerva incident. In Korea this is entirely possible. In America, the general populace is a bit technologically retarded so markets react according to which way Alan Greenspan picks his nose on the evening news on TV, such as during the reign of Bush II.
Robert,
“Minerva” hit the nail on the head with the punishable offense. And not for the first time (as I recall). Yeah, he might have gotten lucky with his guess that the Korean gov’t was spouting B.S…. but that’s a freakin’ long shot.
Why couldn’t he actually be smart enough to see what the hell happened?
Way too many sheeple believe everything they read, especially if it suits their extreme and narrow political alignment.
Netizenkim’s response #4 outlines what I just wrote to a few friends far more elegantly and succinctly.
I will also add that many Western commentary on the issue (e.g. the ASWJ editorial that Robert links) ignore the local contexts.
Won Joon Choe,
tell us.
Are you a Korean citizen and NOT an US one, who speaks English very well, and has some political ties in Korea, enough to know Son Hakkyu personally,
Yet, has somehow paid someone off to avoid Korean military service?
I think you are.
Tell us.
Tell us all.
I agree with Woon Joon Choe.
Korea’s netizen movement can’t be compared to other countries.
Look at the mad cow protests compared to the greek riots. The greeks had damned good reason to protest, and were set off by that last straw of the kid being shot.
The beef protests? An mostly uninformed lynch mob who had their daily repressions puppeteered by Kim Jong-Il sypmathizers.
Saying that the Netizen phenomenon is applicable to other countries is ignorant and dangerous.
I support wookinponub et al.
It seems that some need to understand social media has no more credibility that graffiti. The government took the wrong PR line from the get go on Minerva by not engaging with him, debunking his ideas or questioning his credibility. This, in part, helped fuel the public’s perception of him as a kind of Robin Hood crusader operating in cyber space.
Until we all realize the Minervas of this world, operating anonymously as they (and we) do, are just regular guys/girls who do not necessarily place any professional credibility, collateral or investment, in their writings, the kinds of hysteria we’ve seen in the Minerva and Mad Cow cases will continue.
Time for the government to a lead on this issue!
“… no more credibility than graffiti …”
And it can take a lead by dealing with its own credibility issues. Ditto the press.
I agree with Won Joon Choe (and wjk, cut it out!) that there’s a context to it all, but IMHO, that context is that netizens have the (largely undeserved) credibility that they do because of frustration with the guys who should be the public’s first source of information.
a korean article just out under the title “an american minerva?” led me to this NYT article on hal turner…
Another concern with the real-ID system that the government wants to use is that of identity theft, which is a real problem already in Korea. KT and Hanaro (now SKbroadband) have routinely stolen and sold subscriber information to spammers. Chinese hackers use Korea like their own personal playground, stealing user information for third-parties already.
Using one’s actual ID number on the internet constitutes a security problem in itself — not to mention the reliance upon obsolete technology that has serious security issues (ActiveX).
Why can’t the government create a new number that will not expose Koreans to identity theft? Why can they not do something better?
I do believe the biggest security problems in Korea are more related to the Russians than the Chinese… and are more about incompetent programming at the telecoms than outright corruption. At least that is how it was explained to me by a couple of friends who were brought here to beef up online security at one of Korea’s telecoms.
And good news — India has emerged as a much greater spam/security threat than Korea over the past year or two. Okay, not “good” news, but Korea is not the overwhelming problem it was a couple of years ago.
Anyhow, for all the talk about freedom of speech, no one has addressed the issue of Minerva’s political affiliations and whether he channeling privileged information illegally, sent to him by various anti-2MB groups. Our friend King Baeksu has written some really interesting stuff about this.
Like here.
And here.
why is it to haggle wjk as draft dodger, fake doctor, etc,
but rightfully accuse Won Joon Choe of draft dodging ultra patriot ultra conservative Korean national?
no one haggles theKorean, bumfromkorea as jeollado commy, either.
Something’s not right.
Won Joon will not be touched again. Must be a former ROK byungjang in the Haebyungdae. ROK MC~. My apologies and derisions to be forgotten.
“… no more credibility than graffitti …”
“no one haggles theKorean, bumfromkorea as jeollado commy, either.”
wjk that’s because basically no one gives a toss.
Excellent post NetizenKim
That could well be true in terms of spam only. Russian spammers seem to do good business here with SKbroadband (Hanaro) recently.
Someone has suggested that Korea Telecom is the subject of hacking but I rejected that idea simply because I can not believe that their IT people have been that incapable for over ten years, not to mention that certain people with several ISPs do most definitely freelance for cybercrime organizations — for the money.
As of August – October of this last year, SK has been the hot spot in the world for botnet activity as well. That has (will) change with time but only because the crime organizations behind that effort are quite flexible in arranging their affairs but security here is a still a nightmare.
Those links about “Minerva’s political affiliations” are good ones too.
I know I would only be happy if the government here could work on their credibility problem more so and leave amateur economists to do their day-trading, in their underwear, at home.
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