[Editorial] The police’s Internet blockade

Posted on : 2008-07-25 13:06 KST Modified on : 2008-07-25 13:06 KST

It has only now been revealed that the National Police Agency demanded Google Inc.’s YouTube remove some video content. The video in question was from an MBC news report televised in April alleging that there is prostitution going on in a hotel owned by the younger brother of National Police Chief Eo Cheong-soo. If they are even going to go after news like that, then the country will have no way to realize its “right to know” (al gwolli) on the Internet. Google is no less deserving of criticism for responding favorably in blocking the free flow of information than the police are for going beyond their authority.

The question that must be answered here is whether Eo ordered or permitted the National Police Agency’s cyber terrorism unit to demand the video be removed. The Communications Information Network Law (jeongbo tongsinmang beop) makes it possible only for people directly affected by violations of privacy or defamation of character to request that material be taken down from the Internet, so it is itself a violation of the law for a government agency to have taken action on behalf of the national police chief or his younger brother. If it did so at Eo’s direction, then he needs to be held responsible for misfeasance, since it would mean he put a government agency to work on personal matters.

The harm does not stop there. The reason Google restricted access to the video is because the law allows it to take temporary measures of that nature. When the Chosun Ilbo asked Google to delete a list of its advertisers, however, Google refused, saying it did not think the material was illegal. It was able to do so because portal sites do legally have some room to make decisions on their own. But now the government is coercing them. Currently it is pushing for the law to be revised so that portal sites would be required to temporarily delete material that violates someone’s rights or is defamatory upon request, or face punishment if it refuses to comply.

Internet content is being recklessly deleted as it is; if the law is revised along those lines, cases of deletion en masse are going to become a lot more common. It is obvious that you would have the political powers that be and corporations abusing the law to stifle criticism or the spread of negative news, constituting the wholesale censorship of the Internet and a blockade of the country’s “right to know.” This would be a very serious and unconstitutional situation in today’s climate of communication, when most of the country is constantly exchanging information and expressing themselves over the Internet. What just happened shows you the potential danger. If the administration’s intention is not to return to the era of dictatorship, in which the government blocked the people’s ears and mouths, then it should immediately stop its attempt to amend the law for the worse.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]