Korean Star’s Suicide Reignites Debate on Web Regulation | Hacker News Reader

Korean Star’s Suicide Reignites Debate on Web Regulation

nytimes.com

9 pointsrobg9 comments

Korea has something equivalent to the social security number called "Ju Min Deung Rok Jung Bun Ho", which literally means resident registered proof number. You need a valid number to register to any site.

Internet has been the medium for the Korean people to quickly organize protests against the government and the place where all rumors regarding celebrities start. The Korean government simple wants to have people reliable for the comments they make on the internet as well as find those people who organize protests. The government or the current president probably wants the latter while using the former as a strong case to do so.

[btw, I don't think Korean people glorify suicides as the Japanese do; I'm a Korean and at least the people around me and I do not think suicide is something to be glorified.]

Because countries should always let the exception dictate the rules.

Ugh.

It seems a little misguided to try and regulate the internet, since it's inherently an international entity. Even China, who's willing to sink a lot of money and resources into the problem, is having a lot of trouble with it.

It also seems like the easy way out for South Korea. The real problem they're grappling is a long-standing cultural problem in which suicide and suicide pacts are glorified. Trying to come to grips with this and deal with it is a heck of a lot harder than blaming popular media and the internet.

The reason China's censorship works so well is not because it is so hard to bypass, its because the general populace doesn't understand or wants to take the time to understand how to bypass it.

Imagine if FOX was your only news source just because you had to go out of your way to get a black box and steal your neighbor's cable. (Maybe that's stretching it a little, but you get my point.)

I don't agree with this statement at all. China has a lot of highly educated (and in practice, unemployed) young people. Many of them are in IT. In my opinion, it's ludicrous to think that large numbers of people don't circumvent the great firewall routinely (perhaps even for simple privacy issues devoid of any seditious intent).

Look at America. Lots of people use privacy-enhancing technology, even in illegal contexts, without really understanding it or the issues that surround it.

Those people who are skilled enough to circumvent the censorship also know they could be summarily punished for doing so.

That is, the firewall/censorship is not designed to be unbreakable, but just to send a message: when you go around this, you are now breaking our rules, and we can get you at our option. This is effective enough to induce people to limit their curiousity. See for example James Fallows, who lives in China and is not just speculating on what's 'ludicrous to think':

"'The Connection Has Been Reset' - China’s Great Firewall is crude, slapdash, and surprisingly easy to breach. Here’s why it’s so effective anyway."

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/chinese-firewall

The punishment might include "re-education through labor" without any trial, or disappearing into detention, as with people who simply applied for protest permits during the recent olympics: