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YouTube Halts Uploads and Comments In Korea

Posted by timothy on from the self-determination-for-some-values-of-self dept.

adeelarshad82 quotes AppScount.com with this disconcerting bit from what many people rank the world's best-connected country: "YouTube users in Korea are no longer able to upload new videos or comment on existing ones. The changes come in response to the country's recent Cyber Defamation Law. Enacted on April 1st, the law requires users of all sites with more than 100,000 uniques a day to provide real names and national ID numbers, in order to curb anonymous comments."

4 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. 'A series of tubes' by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's pretty easy to circumvent the restriction. All korean users have to do to keep uploading and commenting is to go in their profile and change their country of origin to something different than Korea.

  2. Google's response is what surprises me by freedom_india · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Google's response to such limitations was to cease uploading altogether. "We have a bias in favor of freedom of expression and are committed to openness," YouTube Asia spokeswoman Lucinda Barlow, told Yahoo. "It's very important that if users want to be anonymous that they have that chance."

    It's surprising that Google ejects South Korea while continuing to hand over its user information to Brazil and India and kowtowing to Chinese for Censorship .
    Very odd.

    --
    "Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
  3. South Korea by benjamindees · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is South Korea. The democracy. The US client state. Requiring citizen ID numbers and outlawing anonymous free speech.

    Not North Korea. The communist dictatorship.

    Make no mistake. Since the article makes a point to keep saying "Korea", a significant portion of US readers will conflate the two.

    --
    "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
  4. The two Republics of Korea by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    Neither country's official name has the word "North" or "South". "South" Korea is officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), while "North" Korea is officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).