[godelski]

It's also worth noting the SK has some pretty terrible laws around the internet in general. Distribution of porn is illegal there and they do their best to block it from outside. They are pretty big on cyber defamation and will go after people who make fun of government officials[0]. They have a comparatively low internet freedom score because they do things like fine middle schoolers for having anti-government websites and the president pursues legal action against YouTubers[1].

It's pretty interesting when coming from the west where all the problems are often spoken about in the open. I mean the great American past time is complaining about the government. But in SK there's a lot more trust of the government and similarly, a lot more control by them. And it is a fairly tight knit group and there's only a few companies that dominate the country.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/world/asia/critics-see-so...

[1] https://freedomhouse.org/country/south-korea/freedom-net/202...

[autoexec]

> the great American past time is complaining about the government. But in SK there's a lot more trust of the government

Are they really more trusting of the government in south korea or is that just what people will say if you ask them?

If my government aggressively went after every youtuber and literal child who dared to say bad things about the government I'd probably lie and say I trusted my government too whenever asked.

[czl]

Relevant concept: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification

[godelski]

My partner is Korean, yes, they actually trust their government more while being aware of these things.

[petre]

> They are pretty big on cyber defamation and will go after people who make fun of government officials

Because cyber defamation would go rampant otherwise and people would end up killing themselves on lost reputation and cyber bullying. You have to understand Korean culture, where reputation and how you're viewed in society is extremely important.

[godelski]

> You have to understand Korean culture, where reputation and how you're viewed in society is extremely important.

I do understand it, and I think it is dumb. If it is to the point that it is causing people to kill themselves, it is dumb. This doesn't justify the people harassing others, but rather that the cultural element about getting so involved that leads to such harassment is also dumb. Cultures are hard to change, but at the end of the day it literally is up to people collectively deciding change is needed. There is nothing physical in the way. Habits are hard to change, but not impossible. And we should not excuse harmful behavior by claiming it is simply culture.

(There are many elements of Korean culture that are great. But they do not necessarily rely on such a strong notion of reputation. Reputation can still be important without going to this extreme, where it is excessively difficult to redeem.)

[huimang]

You mean the Korean netizen culture where celebrities routinely kill themselves? Where people not only still bully, but rapists can sue their victims for defamation and win?

[petre]

I mean this. It's in Japan but Korea is no different. No one deserves this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/24/hana-kimura-gr...

[greesil]

That explains some managers I've had. Yeesh

[lifthrasiir]

I wouldn't comment over other statements, but...

> Distribution of porn is illegal there and they do their best to block it from outside.

Incorrect, it's yet another incorrect meme. Legal pornography is always possible in South Korea, and while the actual threshold varied over time (because you know, there is no objective metric for them anyway so it has to be a function of the approximate social consensus), legal pornography is not necessarily "milder" than illegal pornography distributed via blocked websites. (EDIT: incorrectly put "stronger" there...)

The South Korean treatment of pornography was extremely distorted mainly because of the rampant copyright violation over pornographic materials produced elsewhere. That blocked virtually all attempts to sell legal pornography and profit from it, why would you pay when you already have tons of free porns out there. Technically speaking, a large portion of the current adult population should have been found guilty if foreign producers could sue them, and I can tell you that the name of a certain blocked but still popular pornographic website [1] has became a household name for many males in their 20s and 30s!

And here is where the SK law's technical distinction between legal pornography and illegal obsence material turned out to be handy. Since those websites distributed pornography illegally, you can just consider them obscene and thus exempted from the copyright protection (!). I really hate this situation and like to see the radical change, but I can also see that it would become a massive and uncontrollable international affair otherwise. So that's why those websites had to be banned (to signal that it is indeed illegal), but the ban itself is so weak that it can be easily bypassed (more effective ban would be harder to justify).

[1] I don't like to quote its exact name, but as a hint, it is often followed by "꺼라 turn sth off".

[skhr0680]

I don’t think it’s a stretch to argue that porn is “de facto” illegal in South Korea

[jagrsw]

Thank you for taking time to write this explanation, but otoh it's a lot of words to say that it's "kinda illegal"

[lifthrasiir]

"Kinda" may mean so many things that "kinda illegal" is as useful as no information, hence all these elaborations. They also matter for the eventual resolution.

[jagrsw]

I beg to differ. Using "Incorrect" to counter the statement that distribution is illegal implies it's largely untrue. While a distinction between "illegal" and "de facto illegal" exists, your own explanation doesn't support such a strong rebuttal.

You acknowledge that legal pornography, while technically possible, faces significant hurdles due to rampant piracy and legal loopholes. This creates a situation where accessing legal pornography is difficult and impractical for most, making the initial statement, that distribution is effectively illegal, more accurate than your initial "Incorrect" suggests.

[lifthrasiir]

Maybe I should have also explained that, in spite of these difficulties, there do exist lots of pornographic materials legally available in South Korea. There are many adult-oriented channels in many cable television providers for example. If my wording made you think that legal pornography is technically possible but practically dead in SK, it is my fault. Legal pornography is okay, but just less popular than illegal pornography, I meant to say. (Probably because it is still a taboo to openly say about illegal pornography.)

[godelski]

> Incorrect, it's yet another incorrect meme. Legal pornography is always possible in South Korea

I never said pornography is illegal.

[AtlasBarfed]

It's a lot easier to buy into a government when the most horrid example of one in modern history (arguable, I get it) is only 100 miles to the north with a huge amount of artillery pointed at you.

[somenameforme]

South Korea has a far crazier history [1] than I think most realize. This [2] is the first president of South Korea, installed by the US, and then eventually ferried off into exile in Hawaii by the US after a revolution, leading the 2nd Republic of Korea. That was followed by coups and all other sorts of great things, including 4 acting presidents that did not serve more than 50 days a piece, eventually leading to the 3rd Republic of Korea which was another dictatorship who then had his dictatorial powers codified in the 4th republic. Then he was assassinated and you get the the 5th republic where the dictator's friend was put in power. Then you get the 6th republic in 1987 (!!) and that's the South Korea we're somewhat more familiar with.

Even in modern times, I think most don't realize how wacky Korean politics has been. For instance the president from 2013-2017 (Park Geun-hye, daughter of a former dictator) was involved in some sort of weird cult-like grooming controversy where she was being groomed and controlled by what some media called a 'Korean Rasputin.' She was eventually impeached and imprisoned for corruption/abuse of power, and is now serving decades in prison.

And it seems the current president of South Korea has an approval rating in the 30s. So I have no idea how Koreans view their government, but it's really unlike anything I think that we can compare elsewhere. But I suspect "trust" and "integrity" are not the sort of words that'd be on top.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Korea#

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngman_Rhee

[sooheon]

> and is now serving decades in prison.

I wish. It's a national tradition to jail and then pardon the president. She's been free for years, and is often kow-towing and gladhanding current administration members.

[AtlasBarfed]

And they are facing the demographic cliff of demographic cliffs...

Although what I suspect will happen is that North Korea will fall apart eventually and South Korea will get a demographic surge from immigrating North Koreans.

[actionfromafar]

Will China allow NK to fall apart?

[AtlasBarfed]

China just wants a geographic buffer zone. If everyone in NK moves to SK, they don't care.

[autoexec]

Would it be worth it for China to prop them up? I get that they're communism buddies or whatever, but what does China get out of it? What does China really need from North Korea?

[skhr0680]

From the Chinese and Russian (Soviet) perspective, letting a few Koreans get oppressed is worth it considering the alternative, a land border with the US

[codedokode]

China can has influence over North Korea rather than it will be US (don't forget that there are two Koreas because USA and USSR both wanted to rule Korea but couldn't win against each other).

[snapcaster]

China doesn't want the US military on their border

[godelski]

Not to mention when you were also very recently occupied by a neighboring country. And an extremely brutal occupation at that. I mean there's still a handful of women still alive who were sex slaves, it wasn't that long ago. Korea really has had it tough, but I wish that would be a drive for more freedom, not less.

[linearrust]

> Distribution of porn is illegal there and they do their best to block it from outside.

Good. Why should any country be a conduit for porn? Most sane countries frown upon and limit things like porn, gambling, drugs, etc. Like we used to until fairly recently.

> They are pretty big on cyber defamation and will go after people who make fun of government officials[0]

It's like that in most countries. Other countries can have their own values. Nothing wrong with it.

> They have a comparatively low internet freedom score because they do things like fine middle schoolers for having anti-government websites and the president pursues legal action against YouTubers[1].

Freedomhouse is apparently a state propaganda outfit.

'Most of the organization's funding comes from the U.S. State Department[4] and other government grants.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_House

You are linking to a propaganda site created solely to push a political agenda. Germany has an amazing 'freedom' scores but you could go to jail in germany for espousing certain beliefs about certain events in ww2.

That south korea scores low in the freedomhouse index is a good thing. Though it is surprising given that south korea is a militarily occupied vassal of the US.

> It's pretty interesting when coming from the west where all the problems are often spoken about in the open.

Are they really? You are conflating 'the west' with the US. Most of 'the west' is not like america. In most of the west, you can go to jail or be punished for speech. Most of the west doesn't have free speech that we do in america.

What's with the neverending 'coming from the west' from foreigners here? So many foreigners here pretend to be americans here? Why?

[BiteCode_dev]

> In most of the west, you can go to jail or be punished for speech. Most of the west doesn't have free speech that we do in america.

I'm going to assume you don't travel much cause on our side of the pound we can very much speak out loud of many things the US can't.

In fact, we don't have the absurd taboos that force the US to use alternative words. We can:

- Report "He disrespected his colleague, calling him a niger". No need to hide that behind "the n-word".

- We can call pedophilia what it is and debate about how to punish it, instead of using acronyms like CSAM for fear of being labeled in a certain way.

- We can show tits or talk about vagina and not get "porn" tagged all over.

[linearrust]

> I'm going to assume you don't travel much cause on our side of the pound we can very much speak out loud of many things the US can't.

Pound? What country are you from? Why are people so sneaky? Hiding behind 'the west'.

> In fact, we don't have the absurd taboos that force the US to use alternative words.

What? None of what you wrote applies to the US and none of it has anything to do with free speech. It applies to woke social media. What does 'porn tag' have to do with free speech? Besides, my point was being jailed or punished by the government.

> We can:

Question the holocaust without going to jail?