No Restriction on Devil Replies
Some Kim (11) in the fifth grade at an elementary school noticed some critical words about himself in an internet community that his classmates use all together. The anonymous letter said, “Kim is a loser and he doesn’t know how to study.” The same article appeared several times and Kim thought just about everyone would have read those bad words, so now he complains about going to school.
Female university student Lee (20) upgraded her picture on an image bulletin board at a portal site and found herself reading some terrible replies that said, “Looking at your face makes me puke. Do you want me to spit on you?” Shocked, Lee immediately telephoned the portal site company asking them to delete the picture and replies, but she still suffers from such reactions from people.
Singer You Nee, who committed suicide due to depression on January 21, had to endure dreadful replies by some netizens. Even after her death, hurtful postings continue and now disputes have arisen about replies. Prior to this case, comedian Kim Hyeong Eun, who died after suffering from aftereffects on January 10, also received replies like, “I didn’t want to see her anyway, it's good that she died.” Terrible replies against TV stars are already soaring sky high. However, it’s not just celebrities who get bad comments; it goes the same for regular people as well.
According to the Korean Internet Safety Commission on January 23, 278 people sought consulting after going through rough moments caused by reading bad comments in 2001. The number rose to 4,751 cases in 2006. Most cases are just a single occurrence, but it is presumed that there could be more cases of libel.
Looking through consultations, replies against general people are becoming quite a serious situation. With writing and pictures open to the public, like many portal sites, one has to put up with all the criticism. It is easy to see that a person’s guest book and photo album in one’s individual homepage may receive sexual comments, swearing and secret messages left anonymously by the collective community. To count numbers of participants, an owner of an information sharing site opened up a ‘Swearing zone’ and became a target of bad replies. Some students at a middle school used another student's nickname and made a ‘Club to despise ○○’ at a famous portal site. School violence is carried on via computer.
A targeted person receives a huge impact when bad comments start to come up on the Internet bulletin board in a club or school community. Since they are not public persons who can endure the pain by replies, it is difficult for general people to take the bad comments, thinking they come from someone they know.
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 / 입력시간: 2007. 01.24. 08:02
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