Korea bans anonymity on the internet

This rather interesting article from BBC suggests that anonymity on the internet may be a thing of the past very soon - all thanks to mob justice. You may remember the Korean Shit Girl. It's not the only case, apparently. The mob has power, and it's difficult to stop it, because you can't possibly sue thousands of people for defamation.

It'll be rather interesting to see whether the law has any effect, or will the conversation just move elsewhere, to non-Korean sites. It'll also be interesting to see when exactly will the Finnish politicians decide that we need such a law, too. My guess is by the end of the next year (what do you mean I'm getting cynic?)

Online mobs first demonise those they disagree with, then the victim's home address, credit card details, and even their boss's phone numbers get passed around.

All of Korea's police stations now have a cyber terror unit to help deal with the problem.

The number of cases referred to Korea's Internet Commission tripled last year.

"Often using other people's login to a website, these people spread bad rumours aimed at affecting the victim's social status," said Chun Seong Lee, Liaison Officer at the Cyber Terror Response Centre.

"It's happening a lot. In these situations people could lose their job, or it could affect their social life, even causing mental illness. That's all happening because of the development of the internet, of course."

...

Next year a new law will come into force which will force Koreans to reveal their name and ID number before they share their opinions online.

But some say that does not go far enough.

Forcing portals to collect national ID numbers is just one tactic.

Sung-Ho Kim represents Korean Internet Service Providers. He says they cannot remove offensive material quickly enough. He wants the government to cut off some people from the internet altogether.

Update 08-Nov: Brazil is following suite - the Brazilian government wants to track everyone on the internet for up to three years.




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"Main_blogentry_041106_1" last changed on 08-Nov-2006 19:13:28 EET by JanneJalkanen.