OTOH, I still plan on calling them whingey losers to their faces…

May each of us have the wisdom to avoid suicide over unfounded slurs by nameless faceless online cowards…

dumb

Most westerners are raised to not be as sensitive to insult and gossip. Remember the 'Sticks and Stones' proverb we learned as kids. Anyone who wants to be a celebrity or public figure could expect the paparazzi stalkers and tabloid coverage. Britney Spears, Michael Jackson and Princess Di had to suck it up.

Koreans were raised the opposite way. Saving face (ki-bun) is extremely important to them. Shame is worse than death to many.

Then there is the whole freedom of speech aspect to western democratic cultures. In the USA, if someone insults me and I beat them up, then I committed the crime, not them. In Korea an insults is considered legitimate cause for physical retaliation.

Still, I do believe the Koreans are naive if they think they can fully enforce this. They will probably just end up driving more Koreans away from their domestic portals sites to overseas gossip sites. Then they would have to take the next step, like the Chinese, and have to start blocking access to those overseas sites.

oh wait its korea nevermind

GNP sued the Hankyoreh over false attacks on LMB during the Presidential race and lost as the attacks didn't harm the GNP personally — only LMB.

Many of us old foggies lived through the USENET days long, long ago where "flame wars" resulted in aome of the most obscene name-calling imaginable. Moderation of specified groups provided some relief, but the question arose of whether even moderation amounted to censorship. There were long discussions on newsgroups for years over this topic as it applies to the world internet arena. In the end, there was nothing that was ever agreed on. There are too many people with too many opinions on this sensitive issue.

The Koreans are looking at this as a LOCAL problem, but is it? The user types in a libelous comment and presses "send." The message moves electronically over an INTERNATIONAL internet ether to be posted to a server that is physically located in Korea. The content of that server can be seen INTERNATIONALLY over the internet — meaning it is NOT a LOCAL issue.

Isn't this actually an attempt by the Korean government to CENSOR the INTERNATIONAL internet? I know that most the readers couldn't read hangul, but what about the rights of that Korean-AMERICAN in Cincinatti, OH who reads the website. Hasn't his AMERICAN "rights" been abridged — although it is in another country? Doesn't this user in America have the right to sue the ROK government for censoring his right to information in America?

The absurdity could go on forever.

The ROK government is looking at this as though the Internet is the same as a locally published newspaper (i.e., GNP sued (and lost) the GNP for libel). The Internet is not local…it is international. The information the government wants to censor is NOT on a LAN in a closed information loop. It is information that is broadcast to the world. Thus this legislation is in fact an attempt to legislate the world's internet. For a country that is the #1 wired nation of the world, this is a very naive bit of legislation — a futile attempt by LMB to rein in the Daum Cafe folks — and appease the public hysteria over suicides.