Google Plays Nice with South Korea
Posted by jonathan at 3:01pm EST on 04/13/2009
South Korea recently passed a law that requires sites with over 100,000 unique visitors per day, to require its users to provide their full name and national ID before posting videos and comments.
“We have a bias in favor of freedom of expression and are committed to openness,” said Lucinda Barlow, a spokeswoman for YouTube in Asia. “It’s very important that if users want to be anonymous that they have that chance.”
This statement says a lot more than they’re trying to say. It is actually saying “we care about privacy, a lot.” Which is a very, very good thing. That’s exactly what I want to be hearing from Google.
But what caused this law into effect so quickly?
The new law was rushed into force after the suicide of a popular actress in October focused attention on the problem of online bullying in the highly-connected country.
…
The suicide was the latest in a string of so-called cyber-bullying incidents in the country and helped generate support for the stricter law.
That, is what caused the law into effect.
Partly of what I agree and disagree. This could happen in real life too. Is a government going to make bullying illegal completely and put 10 year-olds in jail for it? Some things are not enforceable, I think this is one of them that shouldn’t be.
