It starts here: applying all of media law to society

I’ve been waiting for this article. C-Net and Reuters report on attempts by South Korea to better control libel online. In the story, a girl on a subway didn’t clean up after her poopy dog and a photo of her spread across the net.

While those South Koreans who actively take part in public debate over the Internet–they are dubbed “netizens” [and are perhaps the most “wired” people in the word]–were searching for the identity of dog poop girl, innocent people were mistakenly identified and their reputations sullied.

Much like my Master’s thesis argument about how the Internet has applied centuries of copyright law on a previously-unresponsible public, this story shows how personal publishing on the net may bring the public under all of media law (libel, copyright, privacy, journalist privilege, etc.). These laws have governed media companies for years, and have developed into a system which is at times confusing, but arguably very effective.

But much the public has never had to learn about or even care about these laws.

Now, South Korea is prosecuting net-libelers, and much like some American case law and proposed legislation, is considering a law to outlaw anonymous forum posting.

Libel laws exist because defamation has correctly been determined to be a crime. However, the question that we as a society need to ask is if it is fair to immediately and blindly apply this developed law to the public (I would cautiously argue, no). There are a number of options other than using the full force of existing law. Technological controls, educating the public, and creating different standards for different types of publishers are all options that should be carefully considered. Perhaps the best option, social norms and social sanctions, has been working well thus far because they operate under “common sense” rules. It’s these types of common sense, or expected, social rules that the law should eventually come to reflect.