Final Draft

Can Network Real-Name System revival?

Computers are parts of human beings' life and their power is becoming so higher that they seep into people's practical life and try to control all the aspects of their life. Thinking about, human use them to buy books, clothes, and foods, to book a flight, train and movie tickets, and to watch news, TV shows, movies, cartoons and even cyber lectures. Furthermore, as computers are installed in various devices such as smart phones, notebooks, or other electric devices, people can meet computers more frequently ever. Namely, computers equal human's life. However, as computers are overwhelming human beings' life, negative sides of the computers are coming to the surface.The drawbacks are serious enough to affect the society itself negatively and hurt the internet-users intensely. So, recently, arguments about the revival of network real-name system has appeared as an effective solution. However, like the old   saying : Overdone is worse than undone, the network system cannot solve the cyber problems but even make other problems. Thus, the network real-name system should not be revived as a key solution to current cyber problems.

Since students who didn't use the computer in 2002 up to 2004 don't know about network real-name system and to clarify its definition, a brief explanation of the network real-name is needed. According to Wikipedia, the real-name system is defined as "a system in which  a user who wants to register an account on a blog, website or bulletin board system, is required to offer his identification  including his legal name to the network service center." Namely, this is a system that forces the internet users to approve their actual identification such as their real names and registers. Korea has exerted this system before. The first format of this system was specified in Public Election and Election Malpractice Prevention Act in 2004, which forced  both the users and internet press to approve their identification when they updated any comments about election on the websites. As a result, active communication on the internet between users themselves has been halted, especially political communication. Since June 28, 2009, thirty-five Korean websites have implemented a name-registration system pursuant to the newly amended Information and Communications Network Act enacted after suicide of Choi Jin-Sil. As a result of Choi Jin-Sil law, websites exerting this system has been increased to 100. However, on August 23, 2012, the Constitutional Court of Korea ruled that the system is unconstitutional, mentioning provision's violation of freedom of speech in cyber place and its inefficiency. Through the brief history about the system, people can notice this system has experienced serious failure and people must not revive this failure again.

"Look at the failure of South Korea. The freedom of anonymous speech is necessary to political dissidence and whistle-blowing from the inside. Network real-name system is a silly idea." New York Times argued. people have to know that this "silly"system can facilitate the corruption of actual democracy and kick-start dictatorship, however, reversely, anonymity can make free communication among public. Post-election uprising that happened in Iran in 2009 is the case. According to a statistic from an article, Iran and the Twitter Revolution, approximately 98 percent of Iranians used twitter and according to an article, Iranian Youth Uprising Via Social Media, Iranians could last and inform their uprising to the world using twitter and facebook,despite their government's strong censorship. Then people will wonder how they could achieve this revolution. Many people owed their accomplishment to nonexistence of real-name system on twitter and youtube. That's because Iranians could join these web sites freely while avoiding the government's censorship. Moreover, in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n 514 U.S. 334, 357 (1995) people recalled the necessity of anonymity in political activity, stating this:

“Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus

exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First

Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from

retaliation—and their ideas from suppression—at the hand of an

intolerant society. The right to remain anonymous may be abused

when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its

nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in

general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free

speech than to the dangers of its misuse.”

From these examples people can conclude : If people want to remove "dictatorship", then they have to remove "real-name system" first!

Since Lilian Edwards and Derek McAuely from What's in a Name? Real-Name Policies and Social Networks said many users find a real name policy is best at annoyance and is a worst  potential bar on online participation at personal level and said the real-name policy can damage public's security at practical level, we have to prevent the real-name system from walking around people's "networking" streets.

There is a common feature between three web sites, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. It seems difficult for people to find but if people try to make a ID in these websites, they can easily find that these websites are adopting anonymity system. According to an article, The Country of Smartphone is Now Seeking for a New Way to Deal With Network Real-Name System, it said "It is a trend that huge websites like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are adopting anonymity system instead of network real-name system. This means "Anonymity" in websites has become popular among users." The main reason these websites are using the anonymity system is they are scared of leaking users' personal information. In 2009, after exerting network real-name system, Korea was damaged seriously by the leakage of personal information. According to an article, 35million Cyworld, Nate usuers' information hacked, approximately 35 million of users' personal information that had been stored on the website was leaked. The damage was really huge because the real-name system made the website store personal information easily. Their personal information was stored automatically to the website. According to Betanews, Kim Eul Dong, a member of National Assembly, criticized "President Lee Myung Bak's personal information has been leaked and other members' personal information including mine have been revealed too." Also, Jeon Hye Suk, also a member of National Assembly, blamed "We introduced this system to prevent malicious comments on the cyber place,however, due to this system, all public's personal information is to be leaked. We have to think about abolishing it." To the two women, the name naming system was a shortcut which people can send their personal information to those who they didn't know. Internet real-name system can be a good shortcut to hackers who want to use others' personal information in malicious ways. People have to protect users' information from this "shortcut". People do not want to send their personal identification including their family's identification to the unknown overseas. It will be better to keep their identification using "fake" name.

Dcinside, a famous Korean portal site, did a poll against 5027 internet users. The poll's question was this : Do you agree that network real-name system can reduce malicious comments on cyber place? Surprisingly, around 64 percent(3217 people) of the users said "no" while less than half of the users expected this system had effects. The expectation of those of 64 percent became true. According to a statistic, Analysis of Network Real-Name System's Effect in 2008, done by Korea Broadcasting and Communication Commission, from Daum Agora, malicious comments on board was 8.3 percent in 2007.

However, the percent of the comments increased to 14.1 in 2008. Also, percent of malicious comments on Moneyside has been increased from 8.2 in 2007 to 12.2 in 2008. Moreover, the ratio of malicious comments on DCinside message board has been increased too, from 9.1 in 2007 to 14.3 in 2008. Seo Gab Won, a member of Culture, Sports, Tourism, and Broadcasting and Communication Commission, argued that "Regulations like name naming system which press the freedom of expression now prove themselves to be hard to reduce malicious comments on the cyber place. Instead,this system reduces free political and social communication forum." Like his saying, the network real-name system has no efficiency on reducing malicious comments at all.

Lastly, the internet real-name system has a constitutional problem that this can violate both users' and internet press's freedom of expression. On August 23, 2012, the Constitutional Court of Korea decided that the real-name system done on various portal sites in Korea is unconstitutional, mentioning the violation on freedom of expression. The Constitutional Court said,

The system does not seem to have been beneficial to the public. Despite the enforcement of the system, the number of illegal or malicious postings online has not decreased. Instead, users moved to foreign Websites and the system became discriminatory against domestic operators. It also prevented foreigners who didn’t have a resident registration number here from expressing their opinions online.

A research paper, Constitutional Research on Real-Name System, done by Hanyang university researchers, proved the violation on the freedom of expression evaluating each law related to the real-name system, particularly Public Election Act. Here's some part of the Act:

Public Election Act, the 82 number 6(In 2004)

1)If the internet-users want to update their comments a bout election on websites or cyber bulletin boards, they have to authenticate their identification, including their real name and registration number.

2)This act might be applied to websites that candidates make but when it's just an informal form, one can avoid authenticating process.

3,4)The Ministry of Government Administration and people selected according to Home Affairs and the use and protection of credit information act will authenticate the internet-users' identification.

5) If the internet-users obey this act, their comments on websites will be eliminated and they will no longer update their ideas on the internet websites."

Public Election Act, the 261 number 1(In 2004)

1)Unless the internet press takes any step, the press will be punished with 10 million won penalty.
With these laws, people could no longer express their political ideas freely. It means that free political and social communication forum can be reduced due to this system.
Also, with these laws, focusing on Public Election Act, the 261 number 1, internet press can be damaged. The press is basically run by various ideas of public. Thus, the real-name system can block communication between press and public and the freedom of press's expression also can be pressed too. Whether people view the naming system in the aspects of social protection or constitutional infraction, one thing becomes explicitly true : People have to put their hands away from the "silly" naming system!

Explicitly my argument doesn't consider the real-name system in the aspect of social protection, even though the effect is minimum. There are many people who oppose to my argument such as Song Guangxing and Yang Pingfang. The former is a young and leading professor of Yunnan University and teaches Scientific Computing, Artificial Intelligence, a study that tries to develop sophisticated technology similar to human brain, and Mechanical Engineering. He wrote many research paper about computation such as Integral boundary value problems with causal operators. The latter is a student who major in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. Both argued in a research paper,The Influence of Internet Real-Name system on the Management of Internet Public Opinion(file:///C:/Users/SEC/Downloads/09%20(4).pdf),  that "by using network real-name system, we can encourage the netizens to restrict their actions more strictly, and to be more responsible for their network speeches and to act more rationally and it is helpful for forming responsible citizen consciousness, raising the level of social hazard, reducing network crimes, and finally purifying the environment of the Internet." in their research paper. However, there's no evidence that show effective reduction of cyber problems. Rather, cyber problems have been increased after exertion of the naming system. According to a statistic from Broadcasting and Communication Commission, percentage of malicious comments on Daum Agora, Moneyside, and Dcinside has been increased. Thus, the naming system on the internet has no effect on solving any cyber problems and rather this system encourages cyber problems in certain websites. Also Song Guangxing and Yang Pingfang argued that "It is also helpful for lowering the expense of dealing with releasing false information on the Internet and infringing on people's privacy." However, people cannot sure that anonymity system has been irritated by expense of dealing with those things. Frankly speaking, people can expect reversed situation : Rather, the real-name system will irritate people with expense of strengthening security process. The cost of strengthening is much more than that of expense of dealing with false information and restriction on public's privacy. Mr.Schmidt,the chairman of Google, supported for the use of real identities . Google wants to know more about its users because this information is valuable to advertisers and other businesses.

"If we knew that it was a real person, then we could sort of hold them accountable, we could check them, we could give them tings, we could, you know, bill them; you know, we could have credit cards and so forth and so on, there are all sorts of reasons," he was quoted as saying in Edinburgh. He is saying that he stores users' identifications to make it easy for the company to understand their customers. However, it is really a risk-taking. It is possible for Google to be hacked by someone or for the hackers to hack most of the users' identification. Other serious problems will occur. Thus, the "silly" naming system must not play a role in cyber place ever.

It is not difficult to find cyber problems around people. It is easier to find malicious comments right around them. So, recently the discussion about the revival of network real-name system has appeared more than the past. However, looking at Iranian "Twitter Revolution" in 2009, people can know the power of anonymity, nonexistence of network real-name system. New York Times regarded Korean name naming system as a "silly" system. This newspaper criticized this system ,sharply mentioning relation between this system and dictatorship. Reversely, researchers like Song Guanxing and Yang Pingfang regarded this system as an effective social protection. In part, I can accept that this system contributed to a protection to some extent, but it is minimum. However, what people have to focus on is that this system generated social anxiety and didn't contribute to reduction of cyber problems and violation of freedom of public's and press's expression. The real-name system is no longer a way of social protection, but rather it can damage people's society in the future. If people abolish the real-name system in their society completely, they will not worry about leakage of their identification to China or East Europe who they don't know. They will freely express their opinion about irrational policies, bad politicians and elections. They will make true democracy from removing this system. Lastly, it can contribute to make healthier cyber culture. People don't want computers to know their whole identification or they do not want to make their computers like "parents" who care all aspects of them. In this situation, people have to keep this in mind : Computers are computer. People are people. People cannot leave whole -themselves to the computer as they do to their parents. Computers will betrayal human!

[References]

Wekipedia.. from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-name_system


Betanews 'Internet Real-Name System Is to Be Dead' by Park Myoung Kee(2011)... from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-name_system

Iran and the "Twitter Revolution" PEJ New Media Index June 15-19, 2009.. from http://www.journalism.org/2009/06/25/iran-and-twitter-revolution/

Iranian youth uprising via social media.. Green Revolution June 18, 2009... from http://danpankraz.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/iranian-youth-uprising-via-social-media-green-revolution/

What’s in a name? Real name policies and social networks, Lilian Edwards and Derek McAuley.. from http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~drm/papers/2013_NamesHavePower%20paris%20vn.pdf

The Country of Smartphone is Now Seeking for a New way to Deal With Network Real-Name System, Lee Myoung Soo, January 22, 2014.. from http://blog.daum.net/kcc1335/4170

35m Cyworld, Nate users' information hacked, Yang Sung-jin, July 28, 2011  ...from http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20110728000881

Real-names or False-names? How to Best Enforce Internet Etiquette, Park Dong-Yeol, October 18, 2012...from http://times.uos.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1371

More Malicious Comments on the Internet Due to Real-Name System, October 7,2009...from http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?artid=200910070301525&code=940100

Consitutinal Research on Real-Name System,Huang Seoung-ki...from http://www.hanyang.ac.kr/home_news/H5EAFA/0002/101/2008/1-1.pdf

Academic Search... from http://65.54.113.26/Author/3417486

The Influence of Internet Real-Name system on the Management of Internet Public Opinion, Song Guangxing and Yang Pingfang, 2013 ...from file:///C:/Users/SEC/Downloads/09%20(4).pdf

Naming Names on the Internet, Eric Pfanner, September 4, 2011...from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/technology/naming-names-on-the-internet.html?_r=0