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Korea Fighting Pseudonyms on the 'Net
ThreeDayMonk writes "According to the Chosun Ilbo, Korean net firms, pushed by the government, are moving to require message board users to use their real names: 'The current regulation that requires those who post messages on government and public organizations' web sites to use their real names is likely to be expanded soon to private portal sites.' The Japanese version of the page has more information. Apparently, citizen ID numbers will be used to verify identity."
"Apparently, citizen ID numbers will be used to verify identity." Sounds like Big Brother to me. Would be effective in stopping SPAM though.
I suppose you don't know they've done this several times already
Korea has got a long history of brutal, authoritarian government. Democracy is a very young thing in Korea, and not something the culture is very conducive toward. Koreans on matters tend to be very rightious, extreamly infactic, authoritarian, and prepared to smash whatever gets in the way of completing the task at hand. So don't be surprised the government is behaving this way, even their Buddhist monks have been known to go on riots.
Luckily there is a younger generation that wants the best, so things should sort out for the better in the long term. They've already managed to do alot.
I'm a Korean-American, but thank God I don't live in Korea.
After a little over 10 years from breaking away from a dictatorship, my people *still* don't understand what freedom truly is.
This is exactly what the founding fathers were doing when they made sure that freedom of speech became a pillar of what made this country. That is what makes this country so great. (Yes, there were a few hiccups, but at least today we can protest against the government and not fear being killed).
What if you wanted to write something against the Korean government? How can you reasonably expect to protest if you didn't have the right to anonymously post your comments? By forcing people to add identification to their posts, the government is trying to break up any attempts for people to anonymous organize for whatever reason.
It sucks, and this is why Korea, or any Asian country will never be a first class country. They don't understand truly what freedom is, and they don't respect the right for people to dislike or even hate you.
The thousands of slashbots babbling something about "anonymity not being a part of freedom".
;)
Ironic, a post from an AC condemning slashdotters penchant for advocating privacy rights.
The right to privacy IS a fundamental function of a free society, along with the right to peaceably assemble, the freedom to speak your mind and the free press.
I have to question the patriotism--or location-- of someone who would actively condemn us for that.
Unless they're posting AC; in which case they're probably simply going for -1 troll anyways.
It if applies to e-mail, that would solve the spam problem. Can you imagine spammers actually attaching their real, verified name to all of their e-mails?
For all you idiots who'd like to see this measure universally applied, I've got two words for you: Salam Pax. You think he'd have been posting if the only way to do it was with his government ID# attached?
I'm pretty sure he wouldn't, and I'm pretty sure enough of the trolls and spammers would find ways to keep going that we wouldn't miss them.
Because, apart from governmental repercussions, there is peer pressure and societal disapproval for unpopular speech. If you force people to use their real names, you will get much less disagreement. Which is, of course, just what repressive governments like.
think about it. maybe a society where no one has to hide behind pseudonyms to speak their mind is more "pro-free-speech" than one where people feel the need not to compromise themselves or something by saying their opinion.
People have thought about this for a couple of thousand years. Many great works of literature, social criticism, reportage, and political science have been published under pseudonyms. Pseudonyms are essential for free speech.
If you want to get rid of the need for pseudonyms, you have to change human nature (peer pressure, retaliation, flaming, all that) first. Good luck.
And so ends free speech.
People use pseudonyms so that they can speak freely. So they post something that some nutcase doesn't like, then the nutcase hunts that person down and whacks them.
Or people want to speak out against the government. Which seem to be what the government there wants to put an end to..
Fear the government that fears you..
When the government restricts your right to speak freely on any subject, no matter who it may offend, it is time to abolish that government....
At the slightest sign of a power vacuum or confusion, ol' Puffy Hair would push over the US and South Korean border guards like matchsticks, and tapdance all the(-very- short) way to the South Korean capitol, for his own version of 'reunification'. Resource-starved countries with huge militaries, time has proven over and over, are extremely dangerous.
North Korea is so far into the dark ages, and Kim is so mentally deranged and desperate(the whole "I'VE GOT NUCLEAR WEAPONS, REALLY, I DO!" isn't working so hot for him), that at this point, he'd do anything and everything to get the resources and land South Korea has. It would, without a doubt, start World War III- that country is so armed to the teeth, and its people so completely, totally brainwashed...coalition soldiers would be fighting every man, woman and child strong enough to pick up a shovel or pitchfork. Kim is no Saddam- his people have been completely brainwashed into loving him. It would be a slaughter on both sides.
So, yeah, I think starting a coup in SK would be a really, really, really stupid idea.
Personal liberty and the right to vehemently question one's leadership shouldn't be questioned, regardless of what type of place you live in. If where you live thinks the idea of free speech is "wrong" then you live int he wrong place or the leaders are fucktards.
What are you, Wesley Crusher, with a fresh mouth?
Please help metamoderate.
The *most* violent and frequent protests in the world occured in South Korea during the hey-day of dictatorship in the 80s. The student protests in Korea were a major reason why Korea is a democracy today.
I was there for that. Obviously you weren't.btw, I did study history, from Chosun to the present day...
Korea is an entire nation. Those large, violent, frequent protests that you saw on TV weren't what you saw on TV. I was there and the prostests were actually pathetically small. Usually it was less than two hundred college students. They just got a lot of coverage in your country. Go one block away from the protest and no one cares, no one is interested.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
It also gets rid of dissident political speech quite effectively.
:-)
I think that's more important to protect than the benefits of eliminating your Internet Troll.
It is rather amusing that you posted AC.
Freedom Is Universal
Linux-Universe
If your government really upheld freedom of speech you wouldn't need to speak anonymously. I really hope you aren't a US citizen talking about "vehemently question[ing] one's leadership" because I don't see much of that going on. Questioning the US government appears to be un-american these days.
The article was short on implementation details but let me hypothesize a bit. Imagine if the law was changed to require Koreans (or others) to sign on to their isp in a fashion that positively verified their identify. Now imagine that this system is normally about 99 percent effective (yeah right). Doesn't this correct the reasons that online opinion polling is assumed to not work ? Couldn't this (hypothetically folks) allow a polling system to restrict votes to one per person, and allow any user entered profile data (with the users permission) to be verified ?
I realize there are many ways a positive id system could be abused, but if online opinion polling could be made accurate and easy to implement, some govts might wind up getting more than they'd bargained for.
In the best case scenario, all I could see happening from this is a huge exchange in names and numbers over something like IRC and this would invalidate whatever information the government thinks they can gain by this. In the worst case scenario, people would seriously have their lives f*cked because the government would actually believe that all the information it sees is true.
No, because it's still a self-selected sample group.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Sooo . . . I should be allowed to ask about anything as long as I don't ask whether I should be allowed to ask? Phzzt . . . whoops, hold on a sec, my hippocampus is overheating.
Seriously though. I think what you're trying to say is that people should never be punished for asking questions. That I can agree with.
I think you're also trying to say that personal liberty is a value so fundamental that it would be foolish even to ask whether it might be a good idea to limit it in some cases. And that I do not agree with; there are plenty of cases where individual liberty is at odds with the interests of other individuals or those of society. As the old saw goes, "Your right to swing your arm ends at my nose." In the absence of any restraint on personal liberty, you have chaos; suppose I choose to exercise my personal liberty by murdering random strangers on the street? If you try to stop me, you are abrogating my liberty.
Establishing a good balance between personal liberty and the interests of others is an ongoing process, and questioning the premises on which the current balance is based is vital maintenance.
This Korean proposal is a perfect example. The government says "We should do this," and people say "Why?" and then you have a debate which hopefully ends up in a course of action acceptable to the interested parties. It's when that process is derailed that bad things start happening: when the government says "It's going to be this way" and pays no attention to the citizenry, the chances that the resulting legislation will be narrow, self-serving crap rise dramatically.
For that reason, we should always be allowed to question every facet of our political systems, without exception.
It depends. I can see communitarian liberals believing we should all live without secrets in a big happy utopia where everyone's lives and views are public and respected (e.g. David Brin's "transparent society"). On the other hand, as an individualist conservative/libertarian with an inherent distrust of government power, I think this is a terrible idea.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
In face to face conversations you will be held responsible for what you say. why not online? if you want to say something you do not want attached to your name perhaps you shouldn't say it. I am not saying give up your freedom of speech, but if you don't want to be associated with such speech, don't speak it.
Please read "Once shunned, Chinese in Korea courted again". Even to this day, the Koreans have a racist attitude against non-Koreans. Most damning is the discriminatory laws that the Koreans have used against non-Koreans. The government of Korea gives preferential treatment to ethnic Koreans seeking Korean citizenship, and if you cannot prove that you are ethnically Korean, then you must obtain a personal guarantee from a high-ranking government official. Even more shocking, for more than 50 years, non-Koreans were prohibited from owning businesses. The Koreans "successfully" drove out most of the Chinese, reducing their number from 150,000 to 20,000.
My goodness, people. Just about everyone is jumping in and condemning the government of SK. Before we do that, why don't we take a look at free speech itself?
Free speech is an externality. For those of you who know econ, that means that it's something that affects the people around you and not just you. Pollution and noisy air traffic are also externalities. When dealing with externalities, there are no absolute rights or wrongs. If we ban air traffic, for example, that will hurt people who want to fly, but benefit those who live around airports. If we allow unfettered traffic, it'll benefit travellers but harm those on the ground. So what do we do? We find a place to draw the line, hence laws saying air traffic must be during certain times of the day.
Now, how does this apply to free speech? Political correctness, for example, grants benefits to those who are offended at the expense of those who want to say what they want, whereas allowing unfettered speech benefits those who want to speak at the expense of those who can be offended. It just so happens in *IN OUR CULTURE* under our own Lockean system of beliefs, we think that the benefits of free speech outweigh the benefits of protecting from censorship, so we draw the line so that it's favorable for free speech. But there *IS* a line. If I hold up a gun to you and shout, "I hate you, I feel like killing you," I would be prosecuted for assault. I didn't pull the trigger; all I did was say some very frightening words. Why doesn't free speech protect me there? Because in that case, the benefits of free speech do NOT outweigh the benefits of not feeling immediate threat. And that is why we have assault laws. Likewise, if I shout "fire" in a crowded theatre and people are trampled to injury or death in the ensuing chaos, I would be arrested because I've crossed the line of free speech.
So free speech is NOT absolute! It's not easy to digest philosophically because idealists like to make blanket black-and-white statements about what's right and wrong. But it's the truth; there exists no absolute free speech, and as a result, there is the task of drawing the line between what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. These lines are determined by many factors, including practical considerations, philosophies, cultures, and what the people want. Asian culture has been a collectivist one for hundreds upon hundreds of years, and it is not to be unexpected for them to tend to draw the line at a place where us westerners, under the influence of a few hundred years of John Locke, would feel uncomfortable with. Who are we to say that their line is wrong and ours is right? Have we the arrogance to pass judgment on another culture like that?
Likewise, many people reacted very poorly to the 9/11 restrictions. Yet, the general populace liked the security (or, rather, the false sense of security). So the voters decided to draw the line differently, and despite whatever number of protests there have been, the liberals are in the minority. So what is to say that they are right, even when the majority thinks otherwise?
Think about it.
Because an online conversation can be dug up later by someone with a grudge against you, any government (not just your government) that takes an interest in you, any employer or prospective employer, and used in a different context to make you look bad. Look for instance at what happens to politicians who "misspeak". It dogs them forever -- who can recall Dan Quayle and not think of "potatoe", or Al Gore "Inventor of the Internet"?
I had a little flame war on a local BBS a few months ago. Then recently a new guy took offence at something I wrote, and he dug up the old flames and republished them. Imagine that in real life. For the rest of your life.