Online Censorship, Part 2   2008-06-19 10:08

This year's OECD Ministerial Meeting, titled "The Future of the Internet Economy", was held in Seoul on June 17-18. Interestingly, one of our most important concerns, online security and censorship, is related to the theme of the OECD meeting.

Choi See-Joong, Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission, was officially on the list of speakers; and President Lee Myung-Bak also spoke in one of the sessions. We'll introduce shortly what they said and what we take them to actually mean. Meanwhile, a few hundred citizens took the opportunity to bring the Korean People's concerns before the international community, holding pickets written in English for visitors to see. Protesters gathered in front of COEX, where the meeting was being held. They then walked along Tehran Street (named after the Iranian capital), known as "the Silicon Valley of Korea" for the concentration of IT corporations along its corridor. As the majority of protesters gathered in Seoul Plaza and KBS, there weren't a lot of People on Tehran Street; but lots of police personnel were deployed to keep protesters away from the conference center.)

Citizens sit in front of the COEX complex with pickets writeen in English and Spanish. (The photos were taken from New Progressive Party's news section, but this website is not affiliated with NPP.)

Okay, back to online security and censorship. The Korean government is trying very hard to keep opinions critical of it and suspicions of dirty tricks from being voiced. As we reported a couple of weeks ago in "Web Portals Compromised", the government tried to take down Daum Agora (the mecca of online discussions in Korea) on the eve of June 6, when the first of the really massive (100,000+) demonstrations was about to begin. Agora came back online after a few hours, but many opinions supporting candlelight protests and criticizing the government for playing dirty had been deleted. Censorship on Agora seems to have weakened since then, but certain opinions are still being ruthlessly deleted as soon as they're posted. The theory about a young woman's death, which we reported in "Death Report: Truth or Fiction?", is one of the most censored opinions; whoever raises suspicions about the official explanation (that there was no death) is almost immediately kicked out of the forums. (Staff members of Daum Communication, Inc. are directly responsible for moderation on Agora.) Granted: for all we know, nobody might have died during the brutal crackdown between May 31 and June 2. That's a very real possibility, and we would be tremendously relieved to learn that that was the case. But censoring the theory is another story. Those nicknamed "Agora CSI", who sifted through thousands of photographs in an attempt to uncover any evidence that might lead to the truth, weren't calling for the mob to rise up in vengeance, or anything else so dramatic. Many of them were, and still are, only concerned about the truth -- and whether or not the government is hiding it. We've been to those forums. We've been following the discussion. We know what these "Agorians" are like. They can toleration dissent if the reasons given are good enough. They can distinguish between reason and propaganda. Many Agorians are university students and professionals; they're presumably better educated and more open-minded than the rest of the "mob". Those who had their posts censored in Agora have gathered in Agorian.kr (a privately owned site), and even there the debates are as civil as they can be. Did the government seriously think that if the theory was allowed to brew, it would trigger a violent uprising of Agorians? Was that the reason the theory was so ruthlessly censored? Or did the government just didn't like to hear the People saying that it had done wrong -- regardless of whether or not the theory was true?

http://www.daum.net/ as of June 19, 2008. Daum is one of Korea's largest web portals, along with Naver, Cyworld, and a few others. International search engines such as Google and Yahoo have a relatively smaller market share in Korea, as many Koreans find the American-style user interface unintuitive.

Online censorship is a relatively new idea in Korea as it is in most other parts of the world. Traditionally, censorship has revolved around the mainstream media such as TV, radio, and newspapers. And the Korean government is still using this old tactic -- or so suspect a lot of People -- for instance, by threatening an audit of KBS (the public television station) clearly with the intention of making it more pro-government. We recently talked about that issue in "Candlelight Protesters Surround KBS" and "Yeouido Again", so we won't repeat ourselves. Many People are concerned about this more mundane form of censorship and media control. But online censorship raises an altogether different issue. For instance, in the second half of "Peace Again on Sunday Night" and also in "Showdown Time", we reported that the government is likely to have employed some thugs to sabotage demonstrations and/or provoke violence among protesters. These suspicions have also been the subject of a very active discussion on Daum Agora and elsewhere. But the theory of government-supported sabotage attempts, just like the death theory introduced above, has been subject to severe censorship. Posts containing alleged photographic evidence were quick to be removed without a trace. Why? In our best guess, either the government was trying to protect the identities of those whom it had actually employed to sabotage the demonstrations, or the government thought that censorship of this theory was necessary for keeping something like public safety. Neither excuse is worth a penny. In particular, it's hard to imagine how low the IQ would be of the person who accepts the second excuse. Let the People talk about traitors among themselves. Let them watch one another with suspicion. Let the thought, "That person must be a spy," be the first thing that comes up in anyone's mind when he or she sees out-of-the-ordinary behavior. What better way is there to create divisions among the protesters and to break up the crowd? What better way to make the candlelight protests fizzle out? The fact that the second excuse just wouldn't work makes the People suspect even more that the first excuse (which actually isn't an excuse) is what the government has in mind. In other words, Lee Myung-Bak's government has been careless enough to leave dirty footsteps in its path. What's wrong with investigating the trail? Why shouldn't we suspect that the government may have done something nasty, when we have good reasons to suspect so? Again, if you're innocent, prove it. Otherwise let the People suspect otherwise.

Daum Agora as of June 19, 2008. The cover story (i.e. the discussion topic that received the most pageviews/votes) is about the government's policy on oil prices. A budget of more than $10 billion has been set aside for this purpose, but many people think that this policy is headed in the wrong direction.

"Letting other People suspect otherwise" is exactly what the Korean government isn't willing to do. President Lee said in the OECD meeting that "Untrustworthy information on the Internet can be a poison." The response among those few who still support Lee was that the government should do more to ensure that as much information on the Internet as possible is true (as opposed to untrustworthy or misleading). So far so good. Who doesn't want truth? The problem, however, is that there's serious disagreement as to what's true in both of the examples we just talked about. What does the President mean, then? Here's our best guess: as much information on the Internet as possible must be made true in the eyes of the government. Or in other words, just as true as the news reports of government-controlled media. See censorship lurking around the corner? See how ridiculous this whole rhetoric is? If truth is what the government says it is, 88% of Koreans who oppose the government's policy on beef trade, and up to 93% who don't support President Lee according to the latest poll (as we reported in "Just What We Feared") are completely mistaken -- or in the words of some conservative Christians who support Lee, "children of Satan". Welcome to the country of the utterly clueless children of Satan. As some political scientists have said, the People aren't always well-informed, but democracy is based on the faith that at least 51% of the People will get it right 51% of the time. You can give or take a few percentage points; but to use censorship with the goal of blinding 93% of the population? Give me a break! We've heard enough about censorship in China. Don't let this begin in Korea.

The Internet is a fantastic means of communication. With the advent of the Internet, the information barrier that has been keeping the elite apart from the lay is finally beginning to melt down. Anyone can go to Daum Agora, Wikipedia, or any other site to obtain information. People are no longer dependent on what the TV and newspapers say. In addition, anyone can post anything on the Internet, whereas it's usually very difficult to appear on TV or have a newspaper report your concerns. It is only to be expected, therefore, that a government that wants to control the flow of information would be seriously alarmed about the Internet. It's no longer enough to control the public TV station; who trusts what they see on TV anyway? But an extremely complicated, costly, and brutal system such as the Great Firewall of China is needed in order to patrol and censor the Internet; and unfortunately, President Lee seems to have something similar (but hopefully less drastic) in mind. The Blue House announced a few days ago that they would establish a special task force dedicated to ensuring the integrity of information on the Internet (or something like that; the details are obscure). That was just when censorship on major web portals was notched up a few levels. If the announcement was supposed to be a disguise for the desire to control the flow of information, once again President Lee has failed to keep his motives hidden. (Yeah, he does looks a little cute when he does that.)

Just in time for the announcement, somebody wrote a column on Maeil Kyungje Newspaper today, arguing that anyone posting anything on the net should be required to provide proper identification. Currently in Korea, web portals with more than 300,000 visitors a day and news sites with more than 200,000 visitors a day are required by law to collect the real identities of its registerd members, and this is bad enough. (Why on earth is the threshold lower for news sites? Because the government wants a tighter grip on them?) Extending this requirement to every website (including privately owned sites) would amount to a tremendous infringement of the Korean People's right to privacy. Now, you might ask what's wrong with revealing your true identity, when you're not doing anything wrong. To be sure, the sentiment that only the mischievous need hide their identities is quite widespread in today's world. London is rumored to have more CCTV cameras than people; Americans have also put up with a ridiculous number of security enforcements since September 11, 2001. And everyone says: only criminals need fear the cameras. Unfortunately, this commonsense maxim only works when the government's distinction between right and wrong corresponds most of the time with the People's idea of right and wrong -- which is rarely the case, not only in Korea but everywhere else. Sometimes your conscience tells you to go against the government, and in such a case, anonymity is the only thing that can protect you against unjust prosecution. With the Korean government actively tracking down and arresting those who raise suspicions (as we reported in "Death Report: Truth or Fiction?"), anonymity on the Internet remains a precious gift which we cannot afford to surrender. Sure, everyone knows your IP address; but in Korea you can walk into any Internet cafe, pay $1, post something on the Internet, and walk out. Petty criminals love this trick, but it is also useful for those with noble causes.

In addition, the author of the column suggested that web portals must be permitted to delete any post without fear of legal retaliation -- which is just another way to say that web portals must be free to engage in censorship. Rubbing salt into the wound was Professor Tim Wu of Columbia Law School, who said at the OECD ministerial meeting that a government has the right to control the flow of any information it considers unfit for public consumption. What are these pigheads thinking? Nobody has the right to tell anyone else what they should or shouldn't know. Cases related to national security and/or corporate interests (of which there are many) are the exception rather than the norm. The government has no right whatsoever to prevent individual citizens from saying that the government had done something wrong. If the politicians are so timid that they can't stand up to criticism, they had better resign the office and let someone else who has better respect for human rights take care of the country. If these morons love their power so much that they would rather forget about human rights, let them try! If Agora gets compromised, the People will move on to private websites such as Agorian.kr where the only piece of information you need to provide is your IP address. When the government says that even those websites must collect the true identities of its users, we will move to foreign websites (such as this one, which is hosted in France as of today). If all else fails, we'll walk out onto the streets and whisper our free speech to one another. Let the government try. It won't work. What is more, Lee's government is using our tax money to do these outrageous things! $10 billion to mitigate high oil prices? $20 billion for the Grand Canal? Tell us first: out of whose pocket does that money comes from?

(By the way, if anyone is reading this from mainland China, could you please let us know? We'd like to know if this website is censored in China.)

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