Fooling The General Public: Mass Media in South Korea & Turkey

[caption id="attachment_3261" align="aligncenter" width="300"] “Naneun Ggomsuda's” (나는 꼼수다) hosts (photo by Emre Kanik)[/caption]

While living in the Netherlands my Korean wife followed the political situation of her country very closely. She gave me regular updates on what was discussed on the popular podcast “Naneun Ggomsuda” (나는 꼼수다) to which she listened every week. The podcast was the voice of young people in South Korea, addressing issues that wouldn't be touched by the conservative mainstream media. Allegations against government officials were frequent, and the government sought a way to stop the podcast by making the life of the hosts very difficult. For example Chung Bong-ju (정봉주), one of the four hosts and national lawmaker at the time, was found guilty of spreading false rumors in what many of his supporters have called a political process, accusing then-presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak in 2007 of being affiliated with a company that forged stock prices. My wife was outraged by the prison sentence, and I was surprised that such a claim could land you in jail, being a politician myself at the time, in a country where you still drink a beer with your greatest political enemy after a city council meeting. So when our visit to South Korea coincided with the protest against Chung Bong-ju’s imminent incarceration, my wife insisted on joining.

On a cold but sunny December morning, we arrived at the subway station near the courthouse where the protest was held. At the station I saw small groups of young people dressed in red, bringing signs, balloons, and roses with them. It didn’t seem like a massive protest, but when we arrived at the entrance of the courthouse, the road was full of people. A white van with a sound system was parked on the curb, playing music and occasionally someone would play the MC and say something in Korean, which I didn’t understand at the time. Cameras of the press were positioned on the roof of one of the buildings in the surrounding area and in front of the entrance of the courthouse. Even the police had someone filming the protesters, which I found kind of odd at the time.

[caption id="attachment_3229" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] The protest (photo by Emre Kanik)[/caption]

The crowd was cheerful and the atmosphere was not at all aggressive. They were singing and dancing and sometimes they all sat on the ground when the MC was telling them to. I didn’t understand why this was happening, but I knew what the cause was, so I sat down as well. Sometimes my wife would translate parts for me, but most of the time she was caught up in the protest. When the hosts of the podcast arrived things got even more lively with speeches and cheers. When it was time for Chung Bong-ju to enter the courthouse, the crowd parted to make a passage and roses were thrown on the ground where he would walk while All you need is love by the Beatles was played and sung by the protesters. He went to an area behind the police line where protesters were not allowed to come, made a final statement to the media (which were surrounding him at this point) and went inside. At the end of the protest when we walked back to the subway station a small fight almost broke out. Apparently an older lady had shouted to some of the protesters that the color red is used by communists. Some curses were exchanged, but that concluded the incident.

[caption id="attachment_3228" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Chung Bong-ju addressing the crowd (photo by Emre Kanik)[/caption]

The purpose of the protest and the situation with the old lady at the end reminded me of Turkey. It sometimes shocks me how similar the Turkish and Korean cultures are: the close family ties and friendships, how people with different opinions are immediately treated as enemies, and how losing face is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. Similar cultures make similar societies, so it is not a surprise that there are many similarities between Turkey and South Korean politics as well. Opposing political parties are each other's mortal enemies. Whoever is in power uses everything they can to destroy anybody who opposes them. One of the most commonly used tools: mass media.

In both countries the ruling party wants to control what the people see and read. Having a population that still relies heavily on newspapers and news broadcasts, they keep those under strict control. Although organized differently in the two countries, the effects of that control are the same. It is sufficient to say that high positions at TV stations and newspapers are filled by people friendly to the regime and journalists are pressured (or voluntarily) report what the high management is ordering them to. I won’t go into too much detail how it is exactly organized (Groove magazine has an excellent article on the South Korean situation), but have seen the effects firsthand. When we got home from the protest and turned on the news, we saw how state control operates by outright lying to its inhabitants. The news reported that there was little support for Chung Bong-ju at the protest, showing only the last part where he was in an area where the protesters were prohibited from entering and not showing footage from the rooftops, which would show the true number of people present. This is a mild way of bending the facts, but since then measures have been much stricter to prohibit the people of South Korea to see the truth. During the presidential elections, the Korean secret service has even been accused of trying to manipulate the discussion on Twitter in favor of the ruling party's candidate and now president Park Geun-hye by starting a smear campaign against her main rival. Another example of mass media control became clear during and after the Sewol disaster. The major newspapers and TV stations blindly published and reported government statements and press releases without checking if what they reported was true (many media outlets would apologize for this later). Public confidence in the media fell to a record low.

While state control over the media in South Korea is troubling, in Turkey it is a disaster. Ruled by the conservative Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) since 2002, Turkey has the highest number of jailed journalists in the world and the AKP has most major media outlets under firm control. The AKP isn’t afraid to use its control over the media for its own personal gain, a fact that became painfully apparent during the wave of protests that followed after the government violently tried to end a friendly sit-in at Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park in 2013. Protests engulfed the country addressing press freedom, freedom of expression and assembly, and the government's intrusion on secularism. The government replied with brutal force, teargassing and cracking down on peaceful protesters. The role of mass media in the protests? CNN Türk broadcasting a documentary about penguins. While the country burned, the state controlled media first tried to ignore it. When that didn’t work because all international media were reporting in full force (regular CNN was showing the protests) and Twitter exploded with images and videos about what was really going on, on came the fabricated lies. From reporting that protesters had entered a mosque with their shoes on and drunk beer inside to showing them burning the Turkish flag (which was actually footage from 2010), the state controlled media did everything in their power to slander the protesters. Sadly because so many Turkish people still rely on traditional media for their news, a large part of the country believes this all actually happened. In the recent presidential elections, TV stations wouldn't say anything critical about the leader of the AKP Erdoğan, while the opposition was heavily attacked. The official state channel TRT spent time only on Erdoğan and ignoring his rivals all together. That is pretty problematic in a country where less then half of the population uses the Internet and therefore relies on these broadcasts as their sole source of information.

So is there no way to get reliable information in Turkey and South Korea? As in many cases, the Internet is your friend. Although it is becoming a troubled friendship because of the government of both countries want to control information there as well, it is still possible to find the real story on what is going on. However, if so many people keep relying on traditional media to keep themselves informed it is fairly easy for the government to keep feeding half-truths and lies to the general public. Without true reform in both countries’ mass media their democracies will always be in danger of turning into something uglier. Having the power to vote is just one part of a democracy. Having unbiased information on who you can vote for is just as important.

Which is more popular? TV vs. Internet in Korea and America

The mid-20th century gave us television. The late 20th century gave us the Internet. Now in the 21st century, a battle rages between the two, as they try to conquer the market of countless viewers. Who will come out the victor? Well, that depends on the part of the world in which you happen to be residing. Let the fight begin!

 

Korea

TV
Before everything went online, Korea, along with the rest of the world, had simple broadcast television. What’s broadcast television, you ask? It simply means your TV picks up signals sent out by broadcasting stations like your local news station or big corporate stations like MBC (Munwha Broadcasting Corporation) or SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System).
When it comes to Korean TV, Korean dramas have teenage girls (and some men) swooning, jumping, screaming, and whatever other overemotional reaction, over their favorite K-stars.

[caption id="attachment_3247" align="aligncenter" width="382"] Fans look up as their saviors come down upon them from Heaven[/caption]

The Korean wave, or Hallyu, began in the mid 1990s, but it took most of Asia by storm at the beginning of the 21st century. As it spread around Asia, Korean dramas and boy/girl bands picked up popularity in Europe and America as well. These dramas are what make Korean TV essential to its audience.

Want to watch “Modern Farmer”? Tune in to SBS on the weekends. Have an itch for the latest “Music Bank”? Flip over to KBS Friday night. TV still plays a gargantuan role in being a platform for viewers to catch up on their favorite Korean shows. According to a survey by Quartz, a whopping 78 percent of Koreans watch television every day, compared to the 26 percent that watch online videos.

The news is also a big part of any home television set. Folks that have yet to catch onto this new "Internet fad" still rely on good old fashioned television for information. The biggest broadcasting stations in Korea like MBC , SBS, or KBS produce great drama series and other family-fun programs like "Running Man (러닝맨)" or "Infinite Challenge (무한도전)." However, they are also the biggest news media outlets in Korea as well. These stations hold the most viewership rating in Korea. Though it's true they may be biased towards their political views when it comes to reporting the news, the majority of Koreans watch their shows for the latest news. However, with Internet, a lot of Koreans can find other news sources online.

Exactly  how much Internet do the Korean people use in this IT era?

[caption id="attachment_3248" align="aligncenter" width="392"] Grow your own Hallyu star![/caption]

 

Internet
Everyone knows South Korea provides many of the fastest Internet networks in the world. But do they use the Internet to its full advantage? After all, there are more Internet users (33 million) than there are people with television sets (15 million). With such a fast connection, watching videos or simply surfing the Internet is quite convenient. Korean television provides original shows, but even TV programs can be found on the Internet. Sites like wwitv.com air major Korean and other countries’ broadcasts online.

[caption id="attachment_3249" align="aligncenter" width="389"] Pictured: Social gathering[/caption]

But the Internet is more than just watching shows. It’s a vast cyberworld where information and other forms of entertainment collide---not to mention the online games. There are thousands of Internet cafes and PC rooms scattered throughout Korea that bring in people of all ages. Also, let's not forget  the smartphones. Oh God, are they everywhere in Korea. According to Mashable, 73 percent of Koreans have a smartphone, and with free messaging apps like Kakaotalk, it’s quite difficult for people to get along in society without one. Hell, some people can’t go an entire day without their smartphones (my personal record is six hours).

 

Winner: Internet

Yes, Korean dramas are quite popular throughout all of Asia and in some Western countries, too. However, Gangnam Style spread like wildfire throughout the world, and that would not have been possible without the Internet. A lot of Koreans rely on the Internet to watch, read, and listen to news as well as talk to their friends and associates. And when many of the college students in Korea don’t own a television, it’s much easier for this age group to be content with having the Internet. Koreans are more dependent on the Internet than they are on TV. With mobile technology such as smartphones, almost everyone has a connection to the Internet. This connection to their phones and tablets seems like an addiction in Korean. Though TV is still popular when it comes to shows and other mainstream media, the people of Korea would still prefer their Internet connection.

 

USA

 

TV
Let’s start with the stats. According to Tubefilter, the average American watches 5.3 times more TV than YouTube. Roughly speaking, Americans watch about four hours of TV per day. It’s hard to imagine being able to sit on the couch everyday and watch TV for that long. Perhaps the shows are that much entertaining. After all, American TV shows like the never-ending NCIS have penetrated many countries, including Korea. It’s not only popular shows that keep Americans stuck to their televisions.

[caption id="attachment_3250" align="aligncenter" width="383"] 11 years in the running. Seriously, we get it. You guys are awesome. Now just stop. Please.[/caption]

Sports broadcasts are televised year-long. The biggest sporting event is the Super Bowl. Companies spend millions of dollars for 30 seconds of advertisements. The 2014 Super Bowl set the record for the highest viewed show in U.S. history with 111.5 million views. These sporting events along with other shows are great at bringing people together.
Many people flock to someone’s house to watch the latest NFL game or NBA match. And even those who like similar shows like Glee, have a party dedicated to eating unhealthy junk food and watching their favorite shows.
However, the amount of time spent watching television is beginning to fade due to the Internet.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d-dZlxqs7g]

 

Internet
With apps like Hulu and Netflix, Americans can watch their favorite TV shows anywhere and anytime. The Internet gives them the flexibility to catch up on their latest shows at the viewer’s convenience. It’s also a gateway for people to comment and express their thoughts and opinions about the TV shows they have come to adore. I don’t think there has been a single episode of Game of Thrones after which viewers would go online and praise or spout angry comments. Pretty soon, viewers won’t have to watch TV. They can just simply watch what they want online.

Americans between the ages of 18 and 49, which is the target for most major networks, are watching less television than the previous year, according to a Nielsen survey. After all, it makes more sense to pay 10 dollars a month rather than spend nearly 100 dollars on broadcast television. Let’s not forget that smartphones and tablet computers are also having a major impact on increased internet usage.

Viewers would need a TV set to watch shows and other programs, but with mobile phones and tablets providing the freedom to log onto the Internet, viewers have access almost anywhere.

[caption id="attachment_3251" align="aligncenter" width="364"] Words of wisdom from Ron Burgundy himself[/caption]

 

Winner: TV

Surprised? It’s true broadcast TV is dying down while Internet streaming is gaining more popularity. However, TV is still the biggest media outlet in America at the moment. True, you can watch almost anything online, but the television is still the biggest medium when it comes to shows and other TV programs. Ever since the invention of the television, TV has been one of the forefronts in bringing people together. Though that may soon change with the rise of the Internet, the modern television has yet to lose its popularity in America.

What Good Is Cultural Diversity, Anyway?

[caption id="attachment_3187" align="aligncenter" width="375"] Why should we have all these flags when just one would suffice?[/caption]

The human race now possesses the ability to share ideas among a more culturally diverse range of people than has ever been possible in the entire history of our species, thanks to the Internet. Pretty big, right? Well, maybe not. As I argued in last week's post, the numbers suggest that we're not actually putting the theoretical globalizing power of the Internet into practice, in that we still tend to organize our online communities around shared geographic and cultural identities.

But is this really a problem? We're already inundated in information, and the brain can only process so much. What does it matter if those data come from sources within or beyond our so-called cultural groups? In short, what's so great about diversity anyway?

Well, why don’t we ask the first single-celled organisms that figured out how to exchange genetic material with their neighbors--or, better yet, the antibiotics slowly being rendered obsolete by their promiscuous, rapidly evolving descendants--about how important diversity in possible reactions to the environment is for the fitness of an organism in our ever-changing world. And let’s accept for just a moment Richard Dawkin’s model that certain tenets of culture, like the genes carried by living things, might be represented as “memes” that spread throughout a population with differing levels of fitness and virility [1]. Given the experiences of our unicellular friends, wouldn’t it be the case that the ability to draw material from a variety of diverse sources, like a conjugating protist or transducing bacteria, is beneficial for the fitness of an idea or, by extension, the society that absorbs it? A forest of Dutch Elms might have a certain charm that a forest of mixed maples, beeches, pines, and elms doesn’t have, but when that epidemic of Dutch Elm disease hits sooner or later, I know which one I’d rather build my log cabin in.

Okay, fine. Maybe diversity and sharing are fine for the world of high-school biology case studies, but we’re neither single-celled organisms nor plants. Except that an examination of several societies throughout history supports the theory that those who thrive are those who borrow, so all hail the supersymmetric tree of life. For example, the Tang dynasty is often recognized as the heyday of the nation we currently call China. From 618 to 907 A.D., the Tang boasted the most populous city in the world at its capital Chang’an, the invention of gunpowder and woodblock printing, and several dozen drunk poets good for a few exam questions in college Chinese literature classes. Interestingly, the Tang also saw the rise of the Indian religious philosophy Buddhism and consequent migration of monks from south and central Asia into China, intermarriage between Chinese nobles and nomadic peoples of the western steppes, and the increased tolerance of outside cultures that ensued [2]. Coincidence? Perhaps, of course; correlation absolutely does not equal causation. But, also, perhaps not. (This is sort of why I prefer lab science to history.)

The evolution of Japanese-Korean relations up through the sixteenth century also stands as testament to the upper hand afforded by cultural borrowing. For much of history, Korea occupied a privileged position as the transmitter of borrowed Chinese culture to Japan: Chinese characters, Buddhism, and even Japanese history texts flowed through the peninsula from the mainland, and, by some accounts, Korea maintained a largely amicable relationship with the islands [3]. But, as the anecdote goes, from the time that the Japanese emperor Tokitaka saw a Portuguese adventurer on board a Chinese trade ship shoot a duck with his arquebus one day in 1543, “the gun enters Japanese history.” [4] And Korean history as well, for not fifty years later, an army of Japanese entered the country as not quite polite robed scholars kowtowing to the intellectual might of the Chinese-supported Korean academic establishment but as well-armed conquerors eager to play with their new assimilated toys. With about 40,000 matchlock-carrying soldiers among their initial force of 160,000, the Japanese invaders made short work of the Koreans in the beginning, despite the latter’s own light artillery technology, itself borrowed from the Chinese. For all its technological handicap, however, Korea did eventually win the war against Japan---once it opened its doors to Chinese military allies [5].

[caption id="attachment_3188" align="aligncenter" width="945"] This Korean real estate company is using the presence of American soldiers as a selling point for an apartment complex in Seoul. Should potential buyers be running instead?[/caption]

And what, exactly, was so great about Peter the Great? He turned Russia from a backwater of greasy-bearded bear hunters into a world power in the mid-eighteenth century. How? Maybe his affinity for borrowed culture played a role. By multiple accounts, Peter looked to Europe as a social and aesthetic model for his own nation. He modeled elements of his new capital St. Petersburg after the canal systems of Amsterdam and the gardens of England [6], required court nobles shave their beards after the French style and adopt French dress, and decreed that henceforth women as well as men were to participate in courtly entertainments---as long as they were dressed after the English or Dutch fashion. [7]. In doing so, he was hoping to emulate the successes of a region whose accomplishments in technology, politics, and culture he admired. And, judging from his hard-won military victories against Sweden that earned Russia some new territory and himself the title of “Emperor of all Russia,” his eponymous capital city, and, of course, a place in history as “Peter the Great,” he clearly succeeded at emulating someone’s success [8].

So natural as well as anthropological history offers examples of successful biological and societal organisms characterized by readiness for outside exchange. But what about societies with closed ideologies---those stuck in an evolutionary rut, if you will? Well, the modern world offers, among others, the convenient example of North Korea, a communist dictatorship with high-level political, social, and economic barriers shuttering in a society into which even the Internet has very limited penetration. Its biggest exports these days seem to be angry nativist rhetoric, failed missile launches, and hungry defectors. Not quite the steps a nation might take toward a glorious historical legacy.

Cultural borrowing does not just confer benefits upon the borrowers but upon everyone with the capacity to enjoy the results. Those who borrow are able to take advantage of their superior vantage point as an outsider to cherry-pick and develop the best aspects of a certain cultural phenomenon, thus improving upon the original; as the Chinese proverb goes, 旁观者清 (outside observers see the most clearly). For example, African slaves and their descendants in America borrowed from the tradition of European-American Christian hymns to develop their own brand of spirituals, which we know today as black gospel music. Anyone who compares the version of “Holy, Holy, Holy” by the Black Soul Gospel Choir (the members of which, I might add, hail from a diversity of backgrounds, further legitimizing “black gospel” as a musical form distinct from the original tradition from which it borrowed) [9] with the more purist Catholic version [10] might come to the conclusion that the borrowed meme distilled the celebratory spirit of the music while leaving behind much of the more, um, soporific aspects. The borrowed culture caught on a lot more strongly than the original, forming the basis for musical genres that may not have developed otherwise---blues, jazz, and eventually rock. I’m not arguing that the Beatles wouldn’t have existed had African-American slaves not borrowed from and improved upon church music---oh, wait; yes, I am.

Not only should we be paying attention to ideas worth borrowing from each other, maybe we should also be paying more attention to those already borrowed. Perhaps it is the case that elements of borrowed culture successful enough to spread throughout a new host society are inherently more fit--that is, useful or enjoyable--than equivalently popular elements of local culture. Assuming that a significant proportion of humans might be inherently averse to new ideas and art forms simply for their novelty, the mere foreignness of a foreign idea filters it through an extra selection pressure before it can enter another locale. In other words, you can’t hope to swim through the sea of Beyonce and Justin Bieber unless you tickle the synapses Gangnam-style. This, of course, is based on a loose assumption, since one could also argue that humans tend to crave novelty more than they fear it. Research citations, anyone?

But enough of the same; let's follow my own argument and get some more perspectives into this mix. Dear readers, what do you think? Does cultural diversity in and of itself confer special advantages on a society, or is the idea that cultural diversity promotes cultural resilience just biased hooey from a bunch of starry-eyed hippies in the liberal media?

 

Curb your enthusiasm: Korean internet is not all it's cracked up to be.

Roughly two years ago I moved from a country where net neutrality is implemented by law (the Netherlands) to a country where the freedom of the Internet is under pressure (South Korea). It has been a world of difference using the Internet in both of these countries. To give a feel for how bad the situation really is in South Korea, I will first describe the situation in the Netherlands as a contrast.

The history of how net neutrality in the Netherlands came to be is a fairly recent one. I vividly remember the time when the news leaked that one of the Netherlands' biggest Internet providers had admitted to its investors it was using a technique called Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), with which they could differentiate what the customer was doing on their network. Basically it meant the company was spying on its customers. The plan was to charge extra for certain VoIP and message services because the company was losing money due to decreasing use of SMS and regular calls. The indication that they soon had to pay extra for their WhatsApp use was too much to handle for the Dutch, being the frugal people that they are, and caused such an outrage that the telecom company had to cancel its plan to use the technique. In addition, the Dutch society is also an open one where everybody has the right to express themselves and press freedom is being held in high regard. Therefore, the more informed people worried that the Internet would be controlled by several companies. With these two main arguments, the people urged the Dutch political parties to take action. On 22 June 2011 the Dutch parliament decided to include net neutrality in the new telecom law, and by ratification by the Dutch Senate on 8 May 2012, the Netherlands became one of only two countries in the world (the other being Chile) where net neutrality is guaranteed by the legal system. Thus mirroring the democratic principles of Dutch society in cyberspace.

The benefits of the Dutch net neutrality law for the consumer are many: Internet providers can't limit or charge extra for certain services, the contents of your Internet traffic can be accessed by your Internet provider only in certain extreme cases, your Internet connection can be disconnected only if you don’t pay your bills or you commit fraud, and you have to give explicit permission to let tracking cookies be installed on your computer, which in turn makes it difficult for advertisers to track your behavior on the Internet. All in all it was and is a huge victory for freedom on the Internet. Although at the time I realized to some extent that this was a big deal, since roughly two years I really know by experience how fortunate the Dutch are.

When, in August 2012, I moved to South Korea, which has a reputation of being the Internet capital of the world, I thought I was going to live in the Valhalla of the Internet. Due to several news stories, I thought positively about the South Korean Internet, which seemed to dazzle the world with not only the fastest download and upload speeds around but also nearly universal LTE and WiFi accessibility. Unfortunately, there are some aspects of the South Korean Internet that don't get the attention that they deserve in the news, because of the focus of Western media on the speed of the Internet here. I quickly found out that a new 5G network isn't the most important thing about Internet usage.

A fast Internet connection doesn't get you anywhere if you're not able to access everything you want. Sadly, like in the Netherlands, South Korean cyberspace mirrors its society as well. Internet censorship is common: blocking everything from North Korean sites and materials harmful to minors to pornography and even simple nudity. If the government deems it inappropriate, you won't be able to see it without using a workaround. Unfortunately, blocking some sites is not all the government does; commenting on the Internet isn't anonymous anymore, since you need to register with your social security number to be able to comment on any Korean Internet portal. That makes it easier to extensively monitor the Internet on anti-government comments. Sometimes action is being taken to cut of the perpetrator's Internet or even making arrests in some cases. For example Chung Bong-ju, one of the four hosts of the popular South Korean podcast "Naneun Ggomsuda" (나는 꼼수다) and national lawmaker at the time, was found guilty in 2011 of spreading false rumors, accusing then-presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak in 2007 of being affiliated with a company that forged stock prices. Critics have claimed that it was a political motivated sentence, because of its timing just before the presidential elections. The podcast was a very influential channel of anti-government views. All of this is very serious, but the by far most annoying thing on the Korean Internet ever is Active-X.

The country that has the reputation to be years ahead in technology relative to the rest of the globe relies on this archaic 90's program for its entire e-commerce economy. Forget buying something on your iMac if you're not willing to partition and install Windows as well. Not only that, Active-X is Internet Explorer only, hence the biggest market share of Internet Explorer in the world. Being the Apple fan boy that I am, this frustrates me immensely. I refuse to install Windows on my iMac and if I would, I don't want to have anything to do with Internet Explorer. Fortunately, I have a workaround: if I spot something I want, I'll ask my wife to buy it at her office where she uses a Windows machine. Also I found a bank that has Internet banking for OS X. Well, had Internet banking for OS X.

As a Mac user, you're such a rarity in this country that you're met with a lot of misunderstanding and disbelief. When my bank updated their security protocol they somehow forgot that they used to support OS X as well. As a result the site stopped working on an Apple computer and I had to contact the bank's service center. Their solution was to take over my computer to take a look by sending me an .exe file. When that didn’t work they were genuinely surprised and apparently had no alternative way to access my computer. Not much later after the service center employee promised me she would get back to me and hung up the phone, I got a message that they were unable to solve the problem. So now I have to use my workaround for my Internet banking as well.



Having lived here for two years, I now know that not South Korea, but the Netherlands is the real champion of the Internet. Although the overall Internet speed isn't as fast as that of South Korea, it's close enough. There is no monitoring, no blocking (although there was one issue with Pirate Bay being blocked), and no Active-X. All government websites have to be accessible by all major browsers and all purchases can be done with any operating system. You can criticize the government without being afraid of being cut off from the Internet. While Dutch cyberspace is a free and open world, South Korean citizens have no access to unfiltered Internet. I have not been homesick often in the two years that I lived in South Korea, but when I stumble on news of Internet censorship being used or when I get confronted by the limitations when browsing the web on my iMac, I long for the possibilities of net neutrality in my own country. I secretly wish South Korea would implement it too. Unfortunately, with democracy more and more under strain, I don’t see that happening in the near future.