Investor Presentaiton

ONI Country Profile 357 1164 South Korea's elections framework allows significant limits to be placed on political speech prior to and during elections in order to prevent corruption, promote equal opportunity, and minimize the "damages caused by distorted election news.' Elec- tions are restricted by numerous detailed prohibitions on campaign-related activities that would be standard practice in many other democracies, including elected officials endorsing a candidate, 65 conducting public opinion polls within six days of an elec- tion, setting limits on campaign locations, and posting campaign materials. 66 The election law also extends these restrictions to campaign activities conducted on information and communication networks. Article 93 of the Public Official Election Law makes it illegal for noncandidates to distribute information supporting, recom- mending, or opposing any political party or candidate.67 Election commissions that discover such information posted online may demand that the Web site or hosting service delete, restrict, or suspend the relevant information.68 The NEC is responsible for controlling all aspects of Korean elections, from count- ing votes to monitoring the media and tracing campaign contributions.69 The NEC has used its power to censor online media platforms to remove more than 100,000 election-related articles, comments, and blog entries from the Internet,70 as well as more than 65,000 movies posted to video-sharing Web sites." The NEC began censor- ing the Internet in the early 2000s, partly in reaction to the significant role the Internet played in the 2002 presidential election. 72 It currently has two divisions devoted to Internet regulation and censorship: the Internet Election News Deliberation Commis- sion (IENDC), which handles newspaper Web sites and other online media sources (or "Internet press"), 74 and the Cyber Censorship Team (CCT),75 which monitors per- sonal blogs, videos, message-board comments, and other Web sites.76 73 Violation of the law against advocating a candidate prior to the election period can be punished with a fine of up to KRW 4 million (USD 3,500) or two years in prison." The line between campaigning and normal discussion is extremely vague, and the decision to censor is made at the discretion of the CCT's officers. This vagueness has had a chilling effect on online political discourse, especially on video-sharing sites, whose election-related content has been reduced to little more than videos produced by the campaigns themselves.78 Between the 2002 and 2007 presidential elections, the total number of deletion requests for early campaigning skyrocketed, from 2,425 to 76,277.79 Media have also reported that from June 2006 to May 2007, up to 19,000 online election-related messages were deleted, while the authors of 13 messages con- taining false rumors about candidates faced legal punishment.80 Several security incidents in late 2010 also led officials to crack down on the spread of misinformation online. In May 2010, a South Korean warship was sunk, an act widely labeled as North Korean provocation.81 Despite an international investigation that found North Korea responsible, online discussion forums expressed doubt, sug- gesting the United States was to blame. 82 Government ministers responded by ordering

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