Illegal Campaigning Rampant Online

Online negative campaigning against other presidential candidates is becoming nastier with the election getting closer. The venues for the new breed of the campaigning are the electronic bulletin boards of government agencies and media companies. That way, the campaigners target a particular candidate or systematically hinder the campaigning of another candidate.

According to the police report released on September 23, 2002, the online negative campaigning, which did not make its debut in the local elections held in June of 1998 and the ’97 presidential election, began to emerge in 2000 as more and more people got access to the Internet. During the 16th presidential election campaigning in 2000, 148 people were arrested and prosecuted later. Regarding the June 13 local elections, 466 people were charged. In short, it has been making a steep upward move.

With regard to the upcoming presidential election in December, National Election Commission (NEC) has spotted, from January to August of this year, 1,935 cases of online violation of the campaign law. And for those cases, the NEC has taken punitive measures such as bringing criminal charges through the police or erasing the messages in question off the board.

Distribution of rumors and criticism of other candidates via the Internet are devastating due to its wide accessibility. Thus, regardless of the truth of the messages, it could blow a fatal impact to the candidate being railed against. For this reason, the authorities concerned are racking their brains to come up with countering measures.

According to the police, main tactics used for online negative campaigning are: hiring a cyber-commentator and have the person upload a criticizing essay; posting endless replies to the good messages of other candidate(s); distributing false information to the Internet media companies, acting as a “citizen reporter”; and attacking opponents’ home pages by sending viruses or hacking it.

In response, the police are conducting the around-the-clock patrolling and monitoring over 1,050 web sites of, for example, candidates and media companies, mobilizing 653 cyber-agents who work for local police departments and police stations.

The police are heavily cracking down on illegal campaigning via political parties’ home pages and e-mail, on freezing other candidates’ servers by hacking and sending viruses, and on leaking personal information of voters.

Nonetheless, some point out, since it takes a long time for the perpetrator to be actually prosecuted and penalized, it might be possible for the campaigners to keep waging the negative campaigning under the mentality, “Damaging first, punishment later.” Therefore, systematic devices are necessary to root out the possibility for good.

One high-ranking police officer said, “As the presidential election gets closer, we are heavily cracking down on the negative campaign being waged online. Nevertheless, it is not easy to police the Internet since the matter is political and delicate in nature. I think it will work to mandate the usage of real names when posting messages online.”

NEC’s staff member Kim Joo-hun pointed out, “It is urgent to come up with new ideas and systematic standards for the Internet media, which are susceptible to the illegal online campaigning. For now, we are applying the provisions regulating the printed media. Thus, there lies the problem.”

dreamland@donga.com sys1201@donga.com