Civic Groups Demand Portal Oversight

Civic groups have called for appropriate measures and constraints against internet portal sites, cited as “unrestricted media power.”

Civil groups are firm in calling for legal measures for the “tyranny of the portal sites,” including prohibiting the portals from altering the titles of news articles received by media companies and revealing the number of visitors for articles listed under the “most popular” section.

Established in April as a supervisory mechanism for portal sites, the conservative Journalists for Democracy and Market Economy will invite assemblymen and media analysts in hosting a “Forum to Establish Laws Against Tyrannical Measures of Portal Sites” at 2:00 p.m. on June 29 at the Alumni Hall of Yonsei University, Shinchon, Seoul.

Yang Young-tae, chairman of the Journalists for Democracy and Market Economy, said, “We will present cases on how portal sites alter the titles of the articles received from the media or highlight articles with a certain trend, and which have actual editing power that resembles tyranny.”

The association also plans to reinforce its monitoring processes such as launching a voluntary citizens-based surveillance team, as well as help to establish laws to prevent portal sites from wielding too much power.

On June 21, the organization will send a public inquiry to Minister of Culture and Tourism Kim Myung-gon on “the reasons why internet portal sites are excluded from editing restrictions on current newspaper laws,” as well as file charges against the minister for dereliction of duties for abstaining from exacting punishment on illegal media activities by the portal sites.

Composed of relatively progressive personnel, “Citizens Action Network” announced that it will create a portal site surveillance group and launch it into action.

Kim Young-hong, director of information and human rights of this organization, said, “We will launch a 100-member surveillance team composed of professors, students, workers, and others and start working next week,” and added, “We plan to reveal the biggest problem of the portal sites, which is ‘who, why, and through what process does certain articles become ‘important articles.’”

The association plans to reveal the answer to the questionnaires sent to each portal site early this month. Kim Hye-joon, chief of Liberty Union, said, “In order to prevent the tyranny of portal sites with the power to edit news, basic measures to prevent excessive usage of editing power should be installed in order to prevent portals from changing the titles of news articles, as well as uploading the articles during the time given or place articles according to directions by the media of origin.”

Representative Byun Hee-jae of RunAsia.net, an internet medium, said, “We can easily guess the relationship between the portal sites and the current administration through a recent morning conference, when one public official from the Ministry of Information and Communication announced publicly that ‘sometimes we call personnel from portal sites to discipline them,’” and pointed out, “The truth is that portal sites are subject to power and money.”

Kyunghee Cyber University Professor of NGO Min Kyung-bae, who is heading the information and human rights division of the Citizens Action Network, said, “In order to emphasize social responsibilities of the portal sites, it is advisable for the media to reveal their news editing guidelines,” and added, “Portal news reader committees or ombudsman policies may monitor the management of news sites.”

Jae-Young Kim Jeong-Hun Park jaykim@donga.com sunshade@donga.com