Corporate-Sponsored Censorship: Annoying Things About Korea #12

All That is Wrong With Korea
To those that have high hopes for Korea and its people, this is discouraging. To those that champion individual rights, this is disgusting. To those that believe that Korea can achieve even more, this gives you pause. To those watching Korea from abroad, this makes you wonder if this totalitarian, thought-control action has occurred in North or South Korea. What is “this?” This is Korea’s corporate-sponsored censorship. It can only occur when multiple parties participate. In this case, it is Samsung Electronics, and Naver.com.

Lots of Blame to Go Around
This article was published in The Hankoryeh. An IT blogger in Korea posted a review of the Samsung Galaxy 2 on his blog, hosted on Naver. His negative post disappeared from his blog on May 6 in accordance with a demand by Samsung. Huh?
Let me get this straight. A private consumer buys a product, and posts his opinion on a blog. The manufacturer can apply enough pressure on the host of the blog, and then the post itself is banned? Those that would defend either Samsung Electronics or Naver miss the point: the author has an opinion, and is entitled to voice it, period. Readers can accept or reject the opinion after reading it. It is completely irrelevant whether or not other people share the opinion or not. It is relevant that Samsung objected and was able to pressure Naver into censoring the blog post.

Is it Samsung, or Samsuck? Is it Naver, or Never?
Samsung Electronics looks juvenile and churlish, at best, in making the demand of Naver. If you surf the internet for about one nanosecond, you will find both positive and negative reviews of Apple’s iPhone. Do you really believe that Apple believes that all criticisms are justified? Uh, no. Do you see Apple responding by attempting to censor the publication of the criticism? Again, the answer is no. Apple has its fans and its haters, and deals with both. While not explicitly the reason for this post, it is precisely the criticisms of products by native Koreans which has made Korean companies global leaders in design and features in the international marketplace. Evidently, that factor has been totally disregarded
Naver is Samsung’s partner in crime. Some countries are established purely on the basis of defending the right to free express an opinion. Did you ever hear of the United States? Naver, apparently, hasn’t.

The Hankoryeh Deserves Kudos
Given the backdrop, The Hankoryeh gives us reason for hope. It could have chosen to not run the story. But, The Hankoryeh did. The Seoul Gyopo Guide rhetorically asks, “Where are the other newspapers, such as the Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo, and Korea Herald?” Their silence is deafening. By not running the story, they are, in effect, agreeing with Naver’s (or is it Never?) position.

Bonus: English Through Entertainment Lesson
The U.K.’s rock band Pink Floyd is one of the world’s most famous. While diehard fans will say that The Dark Side of the Moon is their greatest single album, most casual observers know Pink Floyd for the album called The Wall. What is the “Wall?” It is made of bricks, and here is an almost exhaustive description of those bricks. One of those bricks is an “an out-of-touch education system bent on producing compliant cogs in the societal wheel.” In other words, institutional thought control. One way to do this? Censorship.
This song, in the 1980s, became a “battle cry” for youth in some small way (partly because students like to protest against studying). Almost profoundly (almost, mind you), the song was a protest against society’s attempts to make all people think, behave, and believe the same. That will eventually fail, as shown in this video of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2).

Conclusions
Koreans are not accustomed to complaining about violations of individual rights. Native Koreans are very likely to shrug their shoulders when reading this post. That is just sad. On one hand, many are aware that this occurs. On the other hand, you can imagine that so much more could have been done up until now, so much more could be done now, and so much more can be accomplished in the future, if this type of mindset didn’t exist. It is particularly ironic (and inane), that Samsung Electronics, a global leader in innovation, is the one guilty. That the partner in crime is an internet portal, Naver.com, adds insult to injury. In short, corporate-sponsored censorship is surely one of the most Annoying Things About Korea, and is symptomatic of the societal juxtapositions prevalent in Korea.