Choi, a 39-year-old actress, is a national sweetheart in South Korea. After the death of her friend, actor Ahn Jae-hwan, a rumor spread out on the Internet. It said that Ahn Jae-hwan was driven to suicide because Choi had pressed him to repay a $2 million debt despicably. Because of the advanced Internet technology in South Korea, the rumor was spread quickly. Bloggers criticized about her personal life, loan and divorce.  She bore the huge pressure and suffered from depression. Finally she broke out and ended her life.

South Korea linked the incident to web slander. Most news websites allow anonymous comments. Those comments are rarely managed and moderated. Choi spent a lot of time reading the comments, even some of them are unworthy to be read. She cared about other’s opinion about her and said, “I’m worry that my audience doesn’t like me anymore.” Therefore the tragedy happened. Moreover, the suicide rate increased due to the death of celebrities.

The society debates about Internet slander law. The governing party is promoting the law to restrict the web slander. They plan to add system for identity, which means to verify user identity before posting any comments on major websites. The opposition considers it as a martial law that tries to control the cyber world. I think the Internet slander law is an excessive method to control the cyberplace. It may offend privacy and reduce people’s talk on the Internet. Monitoring is a possible way to reduce strong negative messages now. But this needs too much effort for the government. How can social media balance between the goodwill and bad one?

Another issue is, web rumors may help celebrities in American society instead of destroying one’s life. Americans care about individual’s personality more. Some of the celebrities become popular because of online private photos and videos. No matter if people disagree with those celebrities’ behaviors, they are happy with being themselves. We can see the different values in different societies.

Overall, people are still taking on the Internet. Knowing what to learn from the groundswell or just left it is a worthy lesson for us.

Related posts:

Korean Star’s Suicide Reignites Debate on Web Regulation

Choi suicide sparks debate about Internet slander law

South Korea links Web slander to celebrity suicides

A sad day for Korea, and how the internet played its part