“Let’s Campaign for Cyber Election with Real Name”

Although the 16th presidential elections are over, it is pointed out that legislation for preventing illegal activity on Internet, which rose as a new ‘field of election campaign’, through this election, is needed.

Experts indicated, “Current election regulation is compatible to the election culture that has been mobilizing the crowd” and “it is time to change election system to confront anonymity and rapidity, which is the feature of Internet.”

▽Limitation of abuse and insult = Most of the election campaigns on internet were ‘abusing candidates’. However, how to regulate level of ‘abuse’ is hard, as it confuses the judgment of National Election Commission, the prosecution, or the police.

In order to take judicial action regarding abusing of candidate, the intention for castigating certain candidate should be authorized concretely, however, ‘abuse’ and ‘insult’ have vague limitations, so result of judicial action isn’t constant.

In case of Mr. Kim (26), arrested for the crime of abusing candidate, wrote twenty articles regarding ‘Supposing candidate Roh Moo-hyun come to power’ in bullet board of internet news site for 15 days since middle of last month. But, Mr.Im(43), was treated with non restraint, though he wrote article of ‘son of ×, Lee Hoi-chang’ in each press site 100 times for the last six months.

▽Helpless concede after happening = Managing internet sites is embarrassing, too. NEC and cyber crime squad of the police station request deleting of articles of abuse or false articles to the site manager before any one else, however, it is hard to request ‘correct ’ or ‘delete’ articles that comes hundred times a day. Therefore, NEC request ‘delete’ once in a day, however, black-propaganda and articles of abuse in bullet board spread very fast.

If it’s abusing article that raises problem, some of them exist in bullet board more than ten hours sometimes.

▽Illegality hidden in anonymity = As people write article in bullet board on internet under anonymity, abuse and black-propaganda maximizes.

Professor in SungKyunKwan University, Jung Tae-myung (faculty of IT engineering) said, “Internet allows people to register under ‘false names’, which results in irresponsible and indiscreet articles.” and added “In order to prevent dishonoring a person and elections by circulating false facts, we should promote measures to induce real names on internet.”

He stated that ‘freedom of expression’ on Internet should be admitted, but it is necessary to obligate registering IP that can trace identity of a user or writing real name, as there are side and adverse effects. Besides, responsibility and duty of press regarding ‘internet media’ should be imposed.

On the other hand, according to cyber crime squad in the police station, ‘cyber criminals’ in these Presidential elections were 54.5% of total election crimes (1,426 persons) and it surpassed ‘off-line’ criminals first time in election history. The percentage is expected to be raised as the police are investigating 500 Internet crimes related to election till 22nd.

Cyber dept. of NEC deleted 10,700 articles on bullet board and warned or requested investigation to 58 articles.

Jin-Goo Lee sys1201@donga.com