Sex, laws and video
By Jaeyung Park Posted Wed, Dec 1 1999
Former beauty-contest winners often drift into obscurity after their reigns. Not Hyunkyung Oh, Miss Korea 1989. Oh recently gained more celebrity than she wanted. Her notoriety resulted from a short film made privately and half in jest by Oh and a former lover. Korean authorities are not laughing at the film. Nor is Oh, whose reputation has been severely damaged.
The film, The Ms. Oh File, documents sexual relations between Oh and her former lover. Though not the first film to record private encounters, The Ms. Oh File became a national cause célèbre when someone obtained a tape of the film and placed it on the Internet. Police soon removed the file and began to identify providers, but they were too late to prevent broad distribution and a nationwide scandal. Oh’s former lover claimed he did not distribute the film, and police questioned and released him. Oh abruptly disappeared from public life and, in a subsequent newspaper article about the incident, admitted to several suicide attempts.
Oh remains the lone victim of the incident, with the possible exception of free speech and expression in Korea. That’s because The Ms. Oh File has intensified debate over Internet regulation in Korea. Should authorities control the Internet? Is the Internet entitled to the same protection as traditional media? Should information in cyberspace be regulated by the same laws that govern other media or by new statutes? The debate is not unique to Korea, but the Oh case has intensified the level of discussion there.
Rumors about The Ms. Oh File began to circulate publicly last year. Oh is not the first Korean celebrity whose love life has been made public. There have been documented instances involving other prominent people. The rumors were usually silenced over time, and the few nude photos and X-rated videotapes that circulated were seen by few people. Oh’s situation is different because of the ease of access and lack of regulation of the Internet. Anyone could view The Ms. Oh File, download it and pass it along to others.
The Ms. Oh File is not the first controversial Internet site in Korea. Last year, the site A Meeting Place for North Korea-Loving People appeared on the Internet. Its creators constructed a home page with the flag of North Korea. The South Korean flag also appeared with “666,” a biblical reference to Satan. On the same site was a graphic image of a man with red pants urinating on South Korea’s national flag. The site’s creator wrote, “Rise in revolt, Korean laborers” and “May the North Korean President be the father of all Korean laborers!”
Police immediately arrested the creator on charges of violating the National Security Act. The 19-year-old jobless man said, “I am neither interested in North Korea nor its President. I was only concerned about how many users would visit my site.”
The incident prompted Chosun Ilbo, the leading Korean newspaper, to call for Internet regulation. “There is no technology to prevent this,” the paper said in an editorial. “Authorities must clamp down on misuse of the Internet, which allows propaganda and pornography to invade our daily lives.”
South Korean police identified 16 people who left comments out of 4,000 visitors to the site. Most expressed severe discomfort, but some wrote, “Pay your tribute of praise to free speech” and “You broke a fixed idea in this society.” Police investigated the Web site manager and blocked 13 other pro-North Korea sites.
Chuljeung Hwang, director of the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication, says according to existing policy, “The Korean government doesn’t appear to differentiate between the Internet and traditional media in terms of information regulation.” He added, “The government is trying to apply a strict rule to the Internet, particularly when the information is viewed as damaging national security or social mores.”
The Korean courts have also supported some form of regulation of electronic speech. In a recent case, a man downloaded the photos of Seunghee Lee, a Korean-American nude model, but didn’t use them commercially. Although acknowledging the salaciousness of the photos which showed pubic hair, Seoul District Court ruled the computer graphics are not “materials” regulated by criminal law because the law regulates salacious documents, books and films only. However, the court said the defendant could be punished by the Basic Act of Electric Communication, in which sound and graphics are regulated.
Korean courts sometimes produce an ambivalent result. A Seoul District Court judge released a hacker who erased 960 obscene photos provided by a private company. The court ruled, “He indeed interrupted the company’s business, but obscene materials are not worthy of protection. He voluntarily worked as a cyber cop.”
But another recent case has raised public resistance to Internet regulation. A high school student sent e-mail to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, stating that classes ended too late to take the bus, equipment for the science class was meager, and the school desks were too small. The school suspended him for an indefinite period, contending he lied and damaged the school’s reputation. A group calling itself the Parents’ Society Pursuing True Education issued a statement saying the director of the school, not the student, should be punished. The group argued that the Internet deserves the highest protection because it is the most participatory form of free speech yet developed. The school lessened the student’s punishment to service work at the school.
There would be several subtle problems in imposing regulation on so-called indecent electronic speech. What is the definition of minor status? Should a statute apply to commercial activity only or to all Internet use? Is regulation through software packages alone really effective? What about sites originating overseas? The international character of the Internet can pose a problem, as it has in The Ms. Oh File case. Although most of the files have been blocked within Korea, a new site with the file appeared again in April 1999. It seemed to originate from a commercial company in Los Angeles. People living in Korea again have access to the film.
Because of the limitations of regulation, the Korean government has preferred indirect controls of information on the Internet. The government established the Information Communication Ethics Committee in 1995. The committee receives reports of potential abuse and investigates the salaciousness of content or degree of harm. If a problem file or program is reported, the committee asks the Information-Communication Minister to issue a “correction order” to the Internet Service Providers. The Minister also asks the ISPs to notify the managers of files and sites to either change content or eliminate it. The committee has no authority to enforce the ISPs to follow a correction order, but ISPs not following the order could be sentenced to two years’ imprisonment or up to US$20,000 in penalties under the Business Act of Electric Communication. The committee ordered the ISPs to close dozens of adult Internet sites last year. A parent group, Cyberparents, has formed to monitor the Web sites periodically.
The Rule of Consideration of Content, revised by the committee last year, prescribes conditions of Internet content such as maintaining national order, respecting human rights and reputation, protecting privacy, using the “right” language, excluding salaciousness and violence, and protecting social mores. The rules identify 28 standards of salaciousness, including an explicit emphasis or close-up shot that reveals the silhouette or curve of a sexual organ of a man or woman in clothes, and a woman’s outstretched legs either naked or clothed.
Byunghyun Woo of Chosun Ilbo claims “information controls on cyberspace might have chilling effects on computer- assisted reporting” in Korea in the short term. He notes that any interventions or regulation of the Internet would fail in the long term because it is a resilient medium.