Slashdot Mirror
South Korean Financial Blogger Faces 18 Months of Prison
eldavojohn writes "A South Korean blogger named Park Dae-sung has been arrested and charged with destabilizing foreign markets by blogging about declining companies. This is the same blogger who predicted the economic downturn that has been experienced the world over. The Korean Times offers more information on the community college graduate and the accusations levied against him."
Several readers have also sent in news that Omidreza Mirsayafi, an Iranian blogger arrested and imprisoned for his writings earlier this year, has now died in custody.
Blogger arrested for allowing facts to get in the way of a perfectly good argument.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
It's not managers driving their companies to the ground, it's not politics failing to watch over the markets. It's a blogger that warned people about it.
Glad we found someone nobody misses when he disappears. Though, personally, I'd have missed a few managers and politicians less.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, I mean the S. Korean prez. I mean, the guy's obviously trying to keep up with his comrade up north - you know, the dude with the misfiring missile. Hehehe, get it? Misfiring missile. I kill myself.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Expect it.
Expect more of it. Even in the west.
Its something I dont understand. Blaming companies when you should be blaming the central bank and the government, for creating artifical credit bubbles and the resulting mania thereafter.
I mean really, they caused the last one, they'll be causing the next.
Would you give the keys to your new car after your friend rode your last one into the ground, and you couldn't drive for 15 years?
I think not.
what has democracy got to do with it?
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
It is not the same legal process as one would find in the West, where technicalities and Habeas Corpus rein supreme. Someone made a joke about the goverment detaining this particular blogger because he was more intelligent and resourceful than the government, which made the government jealous. That is more true than you know.
Additionally, Korea is the most Confucian country in the world which might add some understanding into why laws aren't always followed in a logical way. This blogger made the government "lose face", to be blunt.
enough said
From the first link "The 31-year-old blogger's crime: falsely reporting that South Korea had barred banks from purchasing U.S. currency" which doesn't seem to describe the claim of "blogging about declining companies" the summary purports.
This also apparently had a real impact on the value of South Korean currency.
I would hope the SK courts don't punish him for making an honest mistake, if that's what this was, but either way it is not about "free speech." They are not punishing him for expressing a view or opinion. They are punishing him for telling a very expensive lie.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
He was arrested, as you know, for "undermining the South Korean economy" with inaccurate ("false") statements on his blog. But if your country's economy can be undermined by a blog, then there is no hope for it anyway. In fact, barring the human rights component of these charges, S. Korea is doing worse harm to its economy by prosecuting this guy and thereby suggesting a mere blog has any influence whatsoever.
True enough, and in this situation Minerva probably did very little to cause the "global economic downturn" nobody except a few unreconstructed pessimists such as my self and Minerva were expecting since about 2006 at the latest. This looks like petty revenge by humiliated S-Korean politicians. However, a blog, posted at the critical time during a crisis can have the potential to swing events in a disastrous way. Of course we didn't have the internet back in 1962 but if we had had it; I wonder what would have happened had a conservative right wing blogger swung US public opinion in favour of war with a stirring patriotic blogging campaign about how world democracy had been unjustly attacked by the evil Soviet Union without the slightest provocation. And this just as the JFK administration was on the cusp of resolving that ungodly mess in a peaceful way. I suppose those of us that survived the aftermath would now be discussing the intricacies of flint-knapping spearheads over a roaring fire while the womenfolk argued about leather sewing techniques while that blogger would probably enjoy the same status in that post-appocalyptic society as Judas does in ours.
Maybe I shouldn't blog about how bad the popcorn had gotten at the local movie theater since the economy went into the crapper. The movie theater could go out of business. Actors could be laid off. Hollywood could demand a federal bailout. Then I could be arrested for causing chaos in the marketplace of recycled ideas.
Then again, the popcorn really does suck. Maybe I should call a food inspector instead.
Anyone remember the UA debacle last September? If the markets are sufficiently hysterical, you can make them plunge with a single headline, regardless whether it's correct or not. The wrong reporting about UA was corrected immediately, yet it sent the markets into a nose dive from which they haven't recovered yet. Regardless of whether the blogger is correct with his statements or not, I would call the reaction of the south korean gov't alarming and telling of the economic troubles soon to emerge there.
So what this incident with the south korean blogger tells me:
Accurate or not, the arrest of this blogger does more damage than bloggers will ever do. It undermines the judicial code and transparency, I really wonder how foreign investor will feel when a country's judicial and political system acts like this.
The USA is a democracy, and we've got this little thing called (ironically enough) the Patriot Act that can be used to make people disappear.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
That's the problem with basing the economy on IP, it's all smoke and mirrors, nothing tangible to base it on...when it's all just 'numbers' somewhere, those numbers can be easily manipulated.[as per your post]
Then you have to license thoughts and ideas...How soon before your kid's DNA/genome/*sequence is violating some MegaCorp.'s IP?(do some research here, it's scary already)
[Not a bash on the U.K., it's arguably far worse here in the U.S.A.]
You can only trade /sell/buy speculations and play numbers for so long until it all has to be backed by something material.(collateral)
No one should be surprised by all of this. It was set up decades ago...added onto, and added onto- never looked at head on and fixed.
White-washing a mud fence only works for fair weather...what could you realistically expect otherwise?
The rains have come....[get your hip-waders!!]
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Korean Internet users now have to submit their resident registration codes, the Korean equivalent of social security numbers, and names, before posting files or commenting on Web sites with more than 100,000 daily visitors
Have they become what they hate?
I see no reason that a government run by majority rule, by definition, would prevent you from getting arrested for your opinion. Democracy does not necessarily mean freedom, or liberty. It could be argued that freedom and liberty cannot exist without a democracy, but it is certainly possible for the people to vote their freedom away.
Imprisonment and death in Iran are more or less common things, Iran's theocracy is one of the harshest regimes in the world, but South Korea is considered a democracy, therefore someone being in prison for publishing a blog in South Korea is more newsworthy than someone dying in prison in Iran.
May I interest you in learning about representative democracy? You'll notice the U.S. is included on that page. Republics and democracies aren't mutually exclusive.
Put identity in the browser.
However, the problem is that he didn't have any stocks or any assets. He was merely a jobless man on his early thirties who didn't have any formal education on economy. That's why the DA is not convicting him for some kind of law on securities or market arbitration, which is far more severe than publishing false information. what he claims is that the DA is charging him because he was merely grumbling that the government is a stupid big liar, though some of the information was not throughoutly fact-checked.
Of course, there are conspiracy theories that there are other people behind him, since they was shocked that his real-world identy was a jobless man who merely graduated community college, and still could post articles with in-depth analysis on the current financial situation. However, that's another story.