For five years, South Korean Internet users could not anonymously leave comments on local sites. At one time, the law on data disclosure caused a storm of indignation both in the country and around the world. In 2012, Koreans were finally given back their right to anonymity.
The scandalous law "The Internet Real-Name System" was adopted to combat cybercrime, as well as to reduce the amount of slander and insulting comments that poured out on South Koreans from their compatriots through the World Wide Web. According to statistics, the number of bullying and threats amounted to 13.9% of the total number of messages written by citizens of South Korea.
The law ordered the administrators of South Korean resources, which were visited by more than one hundred thousand people a day, to find out the true data of visitors using their IP addresses. Also, system administrators needed to disclose the data of users who posted threat comments or disclosed the privacy of other participants in the discussion.
However, the authorities failed to make the Internet space more friendly. South Korean Internet users, in order to maintain their anonymity, simply switched to foreign web resources, while the popularity of domestic sites fell to the limit. At the same time, the number of offensive comments decreased by only 0.9%.
As a result, on August 24, 2012, the Constitutional Court of South Korea repealed the law on data disclosure, in the opinion of other countries, violating the freedom of speech in the country guaranteed by the constitution. According to the court ruling, the repealed law prevented the formation of pluralism of opinions, which is the basis of democracy. South Korea’s home Internet association strongly supported the decision of the Constitutional Court. Now there is hope that South Korea will be excluded from the list of "enemies of the Internet", having got there in 2007 for severely restricting the freedom of speech of users of the World Wide Web.
