::A Geek in Korea::

In a few of my classes, a topic about the Internet was something we had to discuss before the students left for the day. Korean students take ethics classes that are basically “Korean social ettiquette 101″ in their elementary schools. I’m under the impression that they need to do the same thing for the Internet as well. I’ve long complained about the poor design of websites in Korea. This new complaint is about how my students view freedom of speech on the Internet.

One of the core principles of Korean ettiquette that foreigners really struggle with in Korea is called “nunchi”. This is basically “social harmony”. For example, when you are in a group and other people express a fondness for a certain movie you hated, you are expected in some Korean circles to either withhold your opinion, or even to go as far as lying to make the rest of the group happy. By expressing a contrary opinion, it disrupts the social feeling of the group.

This isn’t “Debbie Downer” sort of stuff either. Everyone is expected to go along with the groupthink to keep opinions from clashing. This is one of the worst things about dealing with very conservative Korean people. Having a consensus is more important than factual truth (e.g. Mad Cow disease hubbub.) Most Koreans I know hate this phenomenon, but won’t speak up to to say anything about it for fear of running against group opinion, thus perpetuating it with their silent acceptance.

The example in class was about a blog hosted on Korean service providers sites like Naver or Cyworld. On these sites, people can post their opinions on topics in publicly hosted blogs. The question was about Korean websites policies to remove posts when someone in the comments complain about how the comment was insulting, or hurt their feelings in some way.

As a long time blogger, I reacted with shock to discovering this. “Naver pulls the blog post if you complain in the comments? Seriously?”

Several students said that they thought this was a good idea. “If someone says something that hurts me, I can get it removed. People can’t say bad things I don’t like, so that’s good.”

WOW.

I know I’m arguing with elementary and middle school students, but seriously? Do they not see the consequences of supporting this idea? This would basically destroy all discussion on the Internet if the rest of the world followed this model. Moderated discussions are fine. You can set rules and force people to stay on topic. You can delete posts that are irrelevant, or that add nothing to a topic being discussed, but ANYTHING that offends ANYONE?

In any exchange of ideas, people run the risk of being exposed to information you don’t like. Removing anything that SOMEONE found offensive, for ANY reason basically stops the conversation entirely. I can’t be sure that what I am saying doesn’t offend you. Hell, I’d almost be certain to offend something with this very sentence given enough readers. You can’t worry about if people are going to be offended during the free exchange of ideas.

You certainly shouldn’t need to self-censor if you aren’t violating any laws or threatening public safety. The libel laws are very strict in Korea, to the point of absurdity. That is why this sort of comment system has to be enforced. There are so many terrible, terrible blogs, and no one has the time, or the patience to monitor them all, so I doubt it’s very effective.

I would hate it if a blog said hateful things about me. If what was posted caused physical danger for myself, I could understand wanting it to be removed. That is about the only time I could support such a system. But take down anything I found objectionable? That’s ridiculous.

It’s one of those issues you just have to deal with on the Internet. There are trolls, they say bad things, DEAL WITH IT. I’m not inviting trolls to shit everywhere but really, get a thicker skin about comments on the Internet.