Starting from January 28, 2008, according to the regulations of South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication, 35 major websites in South Korea will gradually implement a real-name system on the Internet. Users who log into these websites must have their personal ID numbers and other information verified before they can post messages. Prior to this, South Korea had already required Internet users to use their real names when registering email addresses and chat room usernames.
The 35 websites involved in this real-name system are portal sites with daily average page views exceeding 300,000 and media websites with daily average page views exceeding 200,000. Among them, South Korea’s two most influential commercial portal sites, DAUM and NAVER, will take the lead in implementing the regulation. Other websites will implement it by July 27.
The real-name system is based on South Korea's "Law Concerning the Promotion of Use of Information and Communication Networks and Related Information Protection" which will take effect on July 27. The government will impose a maximum fine of 30 million Korean won (approximately 930 Korean won per US dollar) on non-compliant websites. According to this law, in the future, if South Korean websites do not proactively block obscene, illegal, or defamatory online articles and video materials, they will bear corresponding legal responsibilities for disputes arising from these harmful information.
To help network operators and users adapt to this new regulation while protecting the privacy of information publishers, South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication allows Internet users to replace their real names with pseudonyms when publishing information after passing identity verification. At the same time, the Ministry also plans to distribute promotional manuals online to guide users through the identity verification process.
South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication will also manage and supervise network information through an ethics committee. In addition, the Ministry plans to establish a Network Reputation Dispute Mediation Department specifically to handle reputation infringement behaviors on the Internet.
This news item can be understood from the following aspects:
1. South Korea's real-name system is still in the trial stage, and this time it is only implemented within the scope of 35 websites, not yet popularized across all websites nationwide.
2. South Korea is a democratic country governed by the rule of law. On one hand, the real-name system helps prevent the spread of harmful information on the Internet, and on the other hand, its implementation has clear legal basis, with relatively complete supporting departments such as the Ethics Committee and the Reputation Dispute Mediation Department, facilitating the determination of responsibilities according to the characteristics of online information dissemination.
3. This real-name system is a back-end real-name system, meaning that users register using their real identity information, but when posting messages at the front end, they can use pseudonyms instead of their real names.
4. If China implements a real-name system on the Internet, it needs to consider two national conditions different from those in South Korea: 1) China lacks public expression channels like those in democratic countries like South Korea, so Chinese citizens highly depend on the anonymous public expression space established by the Internet. Implementing a real-name system on such a public space may block one of the few available channels for free speech. 2) China has not yet built a fully rule-of-law social environment. Citizens who make "sensitive" statements might face improper restrictions from the government, threatening citizen rights.
5. Currently, all countries tend to hold network service providers more accountable for the spread of harmful information. The statement in this news item that "in the future, if South Korean websites do not proactively block obscene, illegal, or defamatory online articles and video materials, they will bear related legal responsibilities for disputes arising from these harmful information," requires network service providers to promptly remove or block clearly illegal information upon discovery, otherwise they will bear legal responsibilities. On August 21, 2007, the China Internet Association released the "Self-discipline Convention for Blog Services," signed by more than ten well-known blog service providers, which follows the same principle. It requires users to agree to agreements containing provisions for service provider supervision of information when registering blogs on the website. This is equivalent to granting service providers the power to monitor corrections, delete harmful information, or even suspend blog services when users register their blogs.