The idea of freedom, and rights to privacy and anonymity differ greatly from country to country. While those of us who live in Western democracies may feel we’re ruled over too much and not listened to by our governments enough, it could be worse. Much worse.
Cyber Defamation Law
The latest example of this is the new Cyber Defamation Law in South Korea. In seeking to stamp out the problem of online bullying, which is clearly an issue that needs addressing, the authorities brought in Orwellian measures which go way over the top and are altogether unnecessary.
Korea is by no means the first country to be concerned over the influence YouTube has. China recently tried to block the site over Tibet violence videos, and has extreme regulations in place.
One of the new rules means any Korean citizen who wants to comment on a Web site with more than 100,000 visitors per day has to first provide their real name and national identity card number. It basically means sites need to be able to know whether someone posting is who they say they are. And in the event of bullying taking place the people involved can be quickly identified and dealt with.
The Why and Wherefore
The law was quickly drafted and implemented when the problem of cyber bullying became mainstream news after an actress was driven to suicide by online rumor-mongering and harassment. Choi Jin Sil’s death was just the latest in a long line of incidents which, rightly or wrongly, made the Korean authorities act.
Most Web sites with the sort of traffic needed for ID to be required already ask for it, and so the law didn’t really affect these Korean-based sites. However, YouTube has never required these sorts of details on registration and would have had to build a new verification system to comply with the law.
YouTube’s Workaround
Instead, according to PC World, it has bypassed the law altogether in order to protect the anonymity of YouTube commenters in Korea. User uploads and comments by South Koreans are now disabled on the site and a quick and easy workaround has been posted on the site (full translation on CNET) for all Koreans to take advantage of.
Users keen to bypass the law and be able to comment and/or upload videos to YouTube just need to change their preference setting to a country other than Korea. It’s as simple as that although what the Korean authorities will think about the solution remains to be seen.
Conclusions
YouTube has, in the past, succumbed to the wishes of governments around the world, censoring videos where appropriate. But this time it saw a much simpler solution to the problem and went with it. As a consequence it has also struck a blow for Koreans eager to preserve their privacy online.
