hankyoreh

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, 43, has indicated the dangers of government Internet controls in South Korea. In a speech delivered at an international conference on the entrepreneurial spirit held Monday at Seoul’s Walkerhill Hotel under the auspices of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Wales criticized the government’s policy, saying, “A ‘real-name Internet system’ is not in accordance with a free democracy. I hope that the Korean government seriously considers that.” In 2001, Wales founded the online encyclopedia Wikipedia (wikipedia.org), and is chairman emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates the encyclopedia. He was also chosen as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by the news weekly Time. He sat down for a separate interview with The Hankyoreh following his lecture Monday.

Wales: I don’t see a problem with punishing someone for criminal contempt when they cause damage to another person’s honor. But the problem is forcing people to use real names online. There is a lot of desire to express opinions anonymously, and various roundabout ways can arise. And there really isn’t any effect either.

A: It’s a very bad idea. The Korean Internet industry will suffer difficulties because of the real-name system. Even if it pulls out of Korea, Google can still offer services and sell ads in other places besides Korea. In terms of effectiveness as well, the Korean government will have difficulties if it doesn’t install a Chinese-style firewall.

A: In areas like music, copyrights are necessary for the development of content. But on the Internet, the need for copyright protection is less than what some people claim. They claim that you need copyrights to turn a profit, but the example of Wikipedia has shown that isn’t the case. They say that illegal copying will set the music industry back, but music culture itself has not been hurt. It’s just been partial damage to the music industry itself.

A: Both online and offline, there needs to be a foundation for taking responsibility. What’s needed isn’t more regulation. People need to concern themselves with forming a healthy online community. A top-down method of government regulation isn’t effective with the Internet.

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