South Korea Scrambles to Clean Up Their Web
by
on May 25, 2007,
South Korea is poised to establish a code of Internet ethics to curb the distribution of pornographic and other inappropriate materials there. A bill is being sent to their parliament for approval this year according to Vice Information Minister Yoo Younghwan. The growth of South Korea's Web presence has grown exponentially and essentially without regulation this year and officials are concerned about social responsibility from Internet constituencies.
Web 2.0 and the World
Web 2.0 has ushered in a worldwide connectivity we could not have imagined a decade ago. With this newfound "correctiveness" several crucial barriers, if we can call them that, have become evident. Cultural barriers and ethical concerns reinforce the difference between various societies. We often overlook the effects that Web 2.0 and the proliferation of information has on all of us. For every achievement in interconnectivity and information access there is certainly the possibility of negative impact.
With Power Comes Responsibility
Local portal operators in South Korea will be asked to filter obscene and defamatory materials or face responsibility and punishment for violations according to an AFP story via Yahoo! News. According to this news, experts say that filtering video at the 18 home grown Web portals there may prove difficult. Teen prostitution is a major concern as the Internet has become a main vehicle for propagating that dubious industry in their country.
In March Yahoo! Korea aired a sex video clip for several hours prompting police there to launch a criminal investigation. The response was the Information Ministry blocking 180 foreign websites in order to stop the spread of obscene materials to the country's portals.
South Korea is perhaps the world's most "wired' country with 70 percent of their population utilizing the Internet. This news comes as no surprise given all the friction between the various Internet entities and the relative invasion of predominantly western Internet culture upon Asia. The people there are as hungry for media, interaction and news as much as or more so than we are. I am also sure that this news will bring out the "free speech" advocates in force, but I wonder why we don't consider what is actually happening here. Many people I see commenting act as if they are rescuing their fellow young people in these other cultures from some sort of tyranny. To be sure censorship and propaganda can be very inhibiting and negative things, but exactly what would "free speech" people be rescuing the South Koreans from in this case? Perhaps rescuing even one teenage girl or boy from a life of prostitution? Should we impose "All" of our own moral dilemmas on the inhabitants of other lands? Can we not acknowledge that everything we export to the rest of the world is not holy?
Drawing Lines in the Sand
I always get on my soap box in these matters. Having been a teacher of geography, culture and a student of foreign affairs it is a little difficult to watch the average Web constituency and particularly the giant ostrich with powerful weapons we call America attempt to impose everything we "think" is right on everyone else. We should become more educated and in tune with the billions of other people in other sovereign places in order to create world harmony and welfare. Insulting governments and the political prostitutes of all the various nations is one thing, but subjecting children to our most graphic and least uplifting element is quite another. So, perhaps I have headed off a few of the die hard "freedom of everything" people, but I doubt it. It seems as if we are all caught between "the man" under one guise or another. There is the "man" who wants to take advantage behind a wall of legal technicalities or political license, and then there is "the man" laying in wait for the innocent and unsuspecting to take some great advantage of humanity for their unworthy cause. So, it is left to us to balance these evils and at least make our own moral statements.
South Korean prostitutes march in protest below, since many are indentured sex slaves one has to wonder where the pimps are. It is pitiful to witness human beings transformed into cattle and beasts of burden. How can we not discern good from evil any more?
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Jowers
Michael Fidler 
jiri
how that happend to the american country past in the 1962 to 1963, that when the puerto rican country, them did sabotage to a super big’est secret rocket, that the american militar people them send it to be build in the puerto rican country since the 1950’s decade, as suppost to be after the puerto rican knew it that, in the american country, some body stept another goverment, the puerto rican decied to quiet of about the secret rocket,
none body of the new american people’s goverment, them knewing of the secret puerto rican rocket, after some a year latter, the puerto rican them decied to threat at the new american stept people’s goverment, some how the puerto rican expresident 1963 he said he is going to hold the rocket for the puerto rican own fine, the american new goverment them decied it to make a deal with the puerto rican because them got scare of the secret rocket, them decied to hold to the puerto rican as an american new state, any way the puerto rican them said that as a pay to go on with the americans them want to be able to drive with the new americanpeoples goverment, them said them want to be able to drive in the american goverment, the puerto rican them said them want to spend a war at the mexican public, to can go on inside the american to kill inside the mexican country, the new american stept goverment them give it a way for the puerto rican to come to kill inside mexico, plus the puerto rican them are killing any where them want to, the mexican expresident 1963, he sedn to kill to the purto rican comming inside mexico, but the american new stept goverment them give a hand to kill to the mexicans, the puerto ricans them are going on every where spendig with power at the mexicans them driving unfree to the mexicans, them doing how much in the mexican precidency many mexican precident them are form the puerto rican island, them msut to be kill as the past legal mexican goverment them command, it must to be that the mexican goverment them are in full drove by the american puerto rican people, the mare spendig the war arround the world, the are of a very low cain of people, very nasty jealous, and drug adicts, some body bealive that he puerto rican them said to the new stept american goverment, of the fix them did in between the germans and mexicans to hurt the american leagl goverment th epuerto rican them said them want to drive with that also, many countries must to stay aware at them do .-
the, american new stept goverment 1963’s, them got at the mexican gov people, the americans them said, any way the mexicans help to trow the past american goverment, the new stept gov, said them are going to used of the puerto rican help to figth at the mexicans, to avoid the big’est pay, the mexicans them want to be, the americans said that the mexicans them want very much pay, that the new american stept gov, is going to be ,going on with the mexicans only, in some few money, the new american stept gov, them said, taht them are going to drive with the mexican politics with the puerto rican up in the mexican goverment, using of weapons power, and any where in them goverments places., the puerto rican them are suchen unhappy public, them are noid persons sick with and madnees,. them must to be drove out, of power.-
that the mexican goverment, got finaly stoled to the mexican public, in the 1994, when the antimexican political party, under name partido accion nacional, formed by puerto rican people,in a team with many other foringers countries, them start to kill to the mexican political party under name partido revolucionario institucional.,