Here is a high profile critic of the South Korean government’s plan to limit anonymous Internet postings:

The founder of Wikipedia said the South Korean government efforts to impose rules for Internet users will eventually fail.

Struggling to cope with the online criticism of its policies, the Lee Myung-bak government has been considering new laws to control Internet postings, which include plans to limit anonymity at commonly used Web sites and strengthening regulations for all sites publishing news.

“Overkill,” says Jimmy Wales, the founder of the online encyclopedia, referring to a legislative effort by the government.

“This is certainly a dangerous path to go down,” Wales told The Korea Times on the sidelines of a Web industry conference in southern Seoul Tuesday.

“The governments that are given the power to block things usually tend to block things, including information that originally wasn’t intended to be blocked from access,” said Wales.

“The most important solution to this kinds of bad behavior in the Internet may rest on the design of community spaces, whether the community has the ability to control what’s going on. At Wikipedia, the community quickly identifies and blocks the people that misbehave and delete their negative contributes.

“I am not a big fan of limiting anonymity to have users behave themselves better, as there is very little evidence that actually works anywhere,” he said.  [Korea Times]

I would have to say that the censorship of the Internet in China has in fact been quite effective for the Chinese leadership considering how few young Chinese know details of the Tianamen Square Massacre.  Lee Myung-bak’s plan thankfully for Korean Internet users, goes no where near the censorship of China thus probably rendering it ineffective.  Personally I am beginning to think Lee’s Internet ideas have more to do with creating the image of him “doing something” to stop the number of high profile suicides blamed on Internet slurs.