On January 21, 2007, a famous South Korean singer Unee was found dead in her apartment, hanging from her bedroom door. It was a week before the release of her third album. During the interview, Unee’s mother told the press how her daughter had been suffering from a severe case of depression ever since her debut. Unee was the target of Korean netizens’ incessant, malicious online comments regarding her physical appearance; netizens continuously defamed Unee just because she looked artificial having done plastic surgeries numerous times. Simply put, netizens were the driving force of an innocent 24 year-old’s tragic death.
The core of the problem is that up until the July of 2007, Korean Ministry of Information and Communication (KMIC) did not implement real-name system on all popular websites, enabling netizens to post any type of comments without having to worry much about being responsible for what they wrote. South Korea has one of the largest Internet populations in the world, with the penetration rate reaching over 70 percent. The power of "netizen" has significantly grown over the decades. Unee is not the only victim of the netizens’ ill-natured online comments. As Internet users increased exponentially in recent years, several other South Korean stars committed suicide after suffering from depression, caused by the malignant comments posted by netizens.
Will the imposition of the Real-Name system solve the issues of cyber bullying? It will definitely improve the people's behavior in the short term. However, the government cannot change the issue; the people have to recognize and change their behaviors. We want to talk more about cyber bullying issues in our blog and what should be done to change people's thoughts. The real-name system does not completely take away people's privacy. Also, it gives netizens a bit more responsibility to what they say. However, in people's "Freedom of Speech" should also be respected. We will further discuss other cyber bullying instances caused in South Korea in our following blog postings.
The core of the problem is that up until the July of 2007, Korean Ministry of Information and Communication (KMIC) did not implement real-name system on all popular websites, enabling netizens to post any type of comments without having to worry much about being responsible for what they wrote. South Korea has one of the largest Internet populations in the world, with the penetration rate reaching over 70 percent. The power of "netizen" has significantly grown over the decades. Unee is not the only victim of the netizens’ ill-natured online comments. As Internet users increased exponentially in recent years, several other South Korean stars committed suicide after suffering from depression, caused by the malignant comments posted by netizens.
Will the imposition of the Real-Name system solve the issues of cyber bullying? It will definitely improve the people's behavior in the short term. However, the government cannot change the issue; the people have to recognize and change their behaviors. We want to talk more about cyber bullying issues in our blog and what should be done to change people's thoughts. The real-name system does not completely take away people's privacy. Also, it gives netizens a bit more responsibility to what they say. However, in people's "Freedom of Speech" should also be respected. We will further discuss other cyber bullying instances caused in South Korea in our following blog postings.
-We envision a more healthy online interaction of netizens-
This is well written and an important issue to raise in terms of anonymity on the web. I would like to see a bit less description and more analysis about the future. So the final paragraph of this entry should be expanded and the first descriptive part minimized...the result would be a more visionary post.
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