Internet control in korea

South Korea definitely has the world’s fastest Internet speeds (and Internet penetration), but it comes with a price: the government censors and watches over some of their citizen activity. This is all derived from Freedom House‘s stats, which ranked the nation in 20th place, out of 60 countries, on its most recent Internet freedom report. This led to a “partly-free” label to be stuck on SK.

This was a better stance than last year, but Freedom House shared concerns about recent events, like criminal prosecutions of netizens, an increase in blocked websites, and claims that, prior to last year’s presidential election, the national spy agency altered online chats.

A fast connection and a high rate of Internet penetration is a bait for citizens to get online, but many others similar to Freedom House argue that the government misuses legislation by overexerting their power over Internet access.

This came as a result of a conviction of a Twitter user from last year, who retweeted posts from a North-Korean account. Park Jeong-geun was charged for praising and promoting NK, under the National Security Act. In his defense, he claimed that he retweeted the comments to make fun of them, and, after appealing the conviction in August, he was finally acquitted.

This act was brought forth in 1948 in order to fight communism and espionage during the tense period of time between the two Koreas; however, activists have been viewing this law as a very convenient way of keeping critics quiet.

The number of blocked websites has spiked: in 2012, the amount jumped to 39,296 (eight times than that of 2008′s). The first half of this year alone has 25,706 sites that are blocked, according to the Korea Communications Standards Commission, which regulates broadcasting and Internet content.

This increase in bans has come as a result of an increase in sites for gambling, porn, and unapproved medicines.

All in all, situation is improving, so there’s not too much to complain about, right? I don’t think I’d trade my freedom for fast internet, though.

I am afraid that china’s model for controlling the internet is being adopted in south korea as well.