The Internet's Invasion Of Privacy - Korea's Case

I. Incident That Happened In Korea

II. Occuring Question And Analysis Of The Incident

III. The Characteristics Of The Internet Society

IV. Conclusion

I. Incident That Happened In Korea

Several weeks ago, in Korea, a huge sensation occurred regarding a national television show. In that show, there is a MC who asks questions to the guests. Every guest has a name-tag which expresses the guests name and affiliation. The MC asked, “Can you date a male who is short, in height?” A female Korean student, Dokyong Lee, replied, “No, I can never date a guy who is short. Nowadays, I think, a person’s height is his competing power. If a male is under 180 cm (5 foot 11 inches), HE IS A LOSER!” After her comment was broadcasted, her name was the number one search word in almost every searching engine. Within a day, very detailed information related to her personal life was disclosed on the internet. For instance, her name, age, height, weight, and so on. The “out of control” mass, who already felt free to attack Lee Dokyong, started to post her middle school and high school graduation album photos which were clear proofs that she had a plastic surgery on her face too. The angry “netizens (internet + citizens)” dug up every trace she left in the cyber world. They went after every official and private comments or replies she made in the past. By tracking down and hacking into her email, homepage, IP address and so on. Unfortunate for her, but somehow the netizens found out she had a plastic surgery on her breast. They exposed memos she had sent to her plastic surgeon. The raging “losers” were all over the internet. Virtually, it was a “Witch Hunt”. To make matters worse, everyone started to call Dokyong Lee, the “Loser-Girl”.

II. Occuring Question And Analysis Of The Incident

I was surprised to see how severely Lee Dokyong was being attacked. While watching the outrageous phenomena, a question came up in my mind. “What happened to that Girl’s Privacy? Is there a thing called privacy in Korea’s Internet Society?” It is certain Dokyong Lee was thoughtless and made a lot of Korean males angry. However, that fact doesn’t justify the severe attack by the public. She is a human being who has her own rights regarding freedom of speech. But the Korean Internet Society did not tolerate what she did and retaliated against her. In my opinion, this “Loser-Girl” incident was caused by three elements. The first element is “Dokyung Lee’s thoughtless comment”. She has every right to think like that, but she should have been more thoughtful before she made such a comment. It was a big mistake to talk like that on a national television show. The second one is the “broadcasting station’s irresponsibility”. The television show was a recorded one. The broadcasting station could have cut out the Looser-Girl’s comment when they were editing the tapped show. However, they did not do that and aired the controversial comment. It was clear that they had an intention to get a higher program rating. It looked like the only thing that mattered to the broadcasting station was gathering attention by creating “noise marketing”. The last element is “the Korean Society’s lack of mercy”. The whole society went after an individual and buried her alive only because they didn’t like what she said. Obviously she crossed the line, but that doesn’t mean that the deprivation of her privacy can be justified. The attack was similar to “human flesh hunting” of China.

III. The Characteristics Of The Internet Society

This was a good chance to observe the characteristics of the internet culture which contains a very violent feature inside it. Also, the sadistic aspect of the Korean society has been re-observed. The Korean society is notorious of being extremely harsh toward things that are “different” from social norms. The problem is that the social norm itself is a very vague concept. The way how, the public went after the “Loser-Girl” was simple. With her name, they searched her ID and personal information. With that information, they hunted down all her previous conducts on the web. Her personal information has been revealed within two hours. After being an eye witness of what took place in this incident, it is not hard to imagine Loser-Girl’s other information were at risk of being revealed. For instance, her credit card number, cell phone number, school records etc. The dreadful information-networking of today can be compared to a “panopticon”, which Jeremy Bentham thought of. A panopticon has a central surveillance tower surrounded by individual prison cells. The guard inside the surveillance tower is able to see whatever the prisoner is doing. Bentham created the panopticon for a humanitarian purpose, which was to substitute ruthless punishments. However, Michel Poucault perceived panopticon in a totally different perspective. He said today’s society is becoming a huge panopticon, since individuals are being supervised and controlled.

IV. Conclusion

We have to be aware that there is an implied meaning in the word “penopticon”. The prisoners inside a penopticon are not able to see what is going on inside the surveillance tower. So they have no idea when they are under surveillance. Whether the watch guard is keeping an eye on him or not, the prisoner obeys to the rules, because he is afraid of being isolated and punished. He doesn’t know why he has to obey the rules. Nor does he learn anything while observing them. He just follows the rules because he is afraid of the surveillance. An analogy can be made between the Loser-Girl and a penopticon. Because, based on the comments she made throughout the talk show, it was clear that she was worshiping “lookism”. But to my surprise, she didn’t even know why she was worshiping it. She is identical to a pitiful prisoner who is observing a prison’s rules while having no clue why. In short, neither the Loser-Girl nor the prisoner is behaving with a free will. The real problem that lies in modern Korean society is that there are many people who think like the Loser-Girl. I hope the Korean society will be able to come up with a solution to solve this matter.

(997 Words)

-- KeeryongSong - 11 Dec 2009

Keeryong, interesting observation and analysis. I wonder how we can solve those privacy issues. Obviously, not easy. After reading this, I thought of Tiger Wood's recent scandal with many women. His cheating acts is of course very problematic. However, those who claiming affairs with Tiger are really crazy. Those ladies should not disclose private text message or voice message to a media or to the broader public. In this Internet and high tech society, there may not be privacy. We should act in the assumption that our conduct is always under surveillance. Ando

-- AndoY - 17 Dec 2009

Ando, thank you very much for your comment.

-- KeeryongSong - 26 Dec 2009

Ando, thank you very much for your comment.

-- KeeryongSong - 26 Dec 2009