With cheap and ubiquitous access to the world’s fastest internet speeds and a lively democracy, South Korea’s cyberspace could flourish with rich discussions and debates ahead of the country’s general election this week.
The reality, however, is that online comments or posts depicting a candidate in a negative light can be blocked with a few simple clicks thanks to a law allowing anyone to ask for them to be deleted for alleged libel or privacy violations.
Critics worry that such compromises of online freedom of expression have limited the ability of voters to be fully informed ahead of Wednesday’s election, which will see South Koreans elect 300 new lawmakers to parliament. They also raise questions over how the state and public should balance the sometimes conflicting rights to privacy and freedom of speech.
“The South Korean Internet appears vibrant. But only short and fragmentary expressions like tweets are flourishing as a way of communicating,” said Park Kyung-shin, a professor of law at Korea University. “Many people have used various methods available in South Korea to censor even content that is trustworthy, well-structured and well-written, because of its potential impact.”
Anonymous online activities, deemed legal in 2012 by the constitutional court, are generally banned during the two-week pre-election campaign period.
But even outside of that time frame, many South Koreans have been fearful of online discussions of any news reports that raise allegations of wrongdoing by lawmakers. Such online posts could be zapped for only tenuous concerns over libel or false information. People caught sharing unfavorable new reports on a candidate can face investigation for libel or the criminal charge of spreading false information.
Freedom of speech has become a point of concern during the presidency of Park Geun-hye, daughter of former military dictator Park Chung-hee.
A Japanese journalist, Tatsuya Kato of the Sankei Shimbun newspaper, was charged with defaming the South Korean president by reporting that she was spending time with a man during a 2014 ferry sinking that killed more than 300 people. Prosecutors sought an 18-month prison term for Kato, who was found not guilty in December in a case critics say illustrated how defamation laws can be used to gag the press and suppress dissent.
Some of the South Korean online political commentary that has been ordered deleted seems tame compared with the online free-for-all raging around this year’s U.S. presidential campaign.
When a report in March by local investigative reporting organization Newstapa that a ruling party lawmaker’s daughter with Down syndrome had received preferential treatment in a college admission process for disabled students went viral, a blogger urged the university and the lawmaker, Na Kyung-won, to respond to the allegation.
Less than 10 hours later, the blog service operator Kakao notified the 37-year-old blogger, known online by his pseudonym TB, that the post had been removed because the election co mmission said it was spreading false information.