THW ban "Il-Gan Best"

[Proposition]

Clarification:

We are not banning "Il-Gan Best" simply because they sometimes post inappropriate things. We propose to ban "Il-Gan Best" since it’s undemocratic, and poses serious harm to our society. Moreover, we are willing to ban another interment websites that have identical characteristics and harms to our society.

Constructive Case 1: What is "Il-Gan Best" and what kind of harms does it have?

#1. What is "Il-Gan Best" and how does it function?

• "Il-Gan Best" is an internet community websites that selects the postings that have the most support from the users. These postings with the most ‘likes’ will be put up in the main page of the website as the best postings of the day. At least in the very beginning of this community, there wasn’t a serious problem. People simply clicked the ‘like’ button if they thought something was interesting.

• The problem is – the users on "Il-Gan Best"  focus on getting the support from others so that they post things in a very extreme and provocative manner. It’s now become so distorted to the degree that it harms the general public.

#2. What kind of problems do we see in "Il-Gan Best"? : Extreme forms of hate speech

• (1) They insult group of people who do not share the same political stance. Namely speaking, they insult and desecrate the past presidents of Korea. We are not trying to say that we should not criticize presidents. As a matter of fact, we are more than happy to see people criticize politicians in democratic nations. The problem is - it is not a criticism at all. It is simply and extreme forms of hate speech without any reasonable grounds. Insulting the innocent families, and providing false information is something that should not be tolerated.

• (2) Also, they often don’t hesitate to comment or post hate speech on women. The word ‘김치녀’ is often used in most of the postings in "Il-Gan Best". We recognized the fact that this word ‘김치녀’ is not only used in "Il-Gan Best". However, it’s not just the words that they use. The general postings in “Il-Gan Best” are highly discriminatory toward women. They don’t hesitate to sexually insult the victims of sexual crime, but more over, these insults to women also extend to insulting children by using the word ‘로린이’ which is a term to sexually target children.

• (3) The most evident and serious problem is that they promote extreme forms of regional hate speech. The postings on "Il-Gan Best" discriminate specific region, namely speaking the 전라도 region. They came up with the word ‘홍어’ to insult the 전라도 region and undermine all the positive aspects in that region. They also further encourage such regionalism by continuously by posting false information such as ‘전라도 is not historically part of Korean heritage’.

* All of these forms of hates speeches will continue to harm the vast majority of citizens who are exposed to such malicious comments.

Constructive Case 2: Is is justifiable to ban "Il-Gan Best"?

#1. When do we limit citizen’s access to an internet community?

• In democratic nations, we try to provide the platform for citizens to express their opinion. What we must also understand is that this freedom of expression is not an absolute value. When there are reasonable grounds to believe that there would be harms to the public, we always limit individuals’ freedom. For instance, we ban hate speeches in all forms. We ban hate speeches that are particularly targeting in inborn nature of individuals such as gender, race, and region. Thing is, "Il-Gan Best" targets ALL of these.

#2. Is "Il-Gan Best" really responsible for the harms mentioned in our first argument? – YES

• We recognize the fact that some people might disagree with some of the worst comments within "Il-Gan Best". However, we think there are reasonable grounds to believe that "Il-Gan Best" in general should take the responsibility. Why? As we mentioned, "Il-Gan Best" is a community that prioritize the postings with the most support from the users. The reason why so many of the ‘Best positing’ in "Il-Gan Best" are based on hate speech is because people within this group actually support gender discrimination and regional hatred. If users of "Il-Gan Best" have not supported such hate speeches to begin with, general would not be facing unacceptable images such as insulting the death of 세월호.

• This means that the worst forms of insults, desecrations and hate speeches ARE the result of the users and they do reflect the user’s expression. This is why we can argue that the postings in "Il-Gan Best" are generally harming the public and satisfy the requirement for the court to limit the access to such internet community.

Constructive Case 3: What are the roles of government, and how do we support this?

What is the Role of Democratic Government?

The role of government is to make sure that (1) Harms to citizen are well prevented, and (2) Value of democracy is well secured. Considering such context, I will continue to prove why the government should ban "Il-Gan Best".

#1. In regards to preventing harms

• In the status quo, what the government is doing is to punish those individuals who have posted hate speech or serious insult to the public. We do not think this is enough. First, punishing them individually is only after the harms are done. Meaning, the serious mental and sometimes even physical damages are already done to the victims. Second, punishing the people who upload unacceptable comments on "Il-Gan Best" is not enough for the uploaders themselves. As a matter of fact, they simply consider being called to the police as another story to post on "Il-Gan Best", and this is often considered as heroic action within "Il-Gan Best".

• Considering such context, what we need to do is to prevent the harms from the beginning. The public is already fully aware of the fact the the users in "Il-Gan Best" will not suddenly become nice. On a realistic point of view, it will actually get worse. As we see in recent case where a high school student have seriously insulted the dead students of 단원 high school, the trend in "Il-Gan Best" is not only limited to online community, but it extends to actual society. Why? Because by ‘confirming’ their so called ‘heroic’ activity, the users can get more support within "Il-Gan Best". Punishing them is simply too late.

#2. In regards to democratic value

• We believe that in democratic society, citizens are encouraged to have healthy discourse on diverse social issues. This is exactly why we allow citizens to post things online to begin with. The problem is, "Il-Gan Best" as an internet community does not promote healthy discourse. When hatred on specific group of people is so wide spread in a community, there simply cannot be a discourse to begin with. If regional hatred is continues to be promoted, even to the degree of using false information, democratic values are severely harmed.

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[Opposition]

Clarification:

This debate is not about whether extreme racism and hate speech toward the 단원 high school students should be tolerated or not. We on opposition also agree to the idea that such postings should be punished by the law. What we disagree in this debate is the way in which we execute such stance. We believe that generalizing an internet community and banning the platform for free expression is unjust and should be tolerated in a democratic society.

Constructive Case 1: Individuals Freedom to express their idea

#1. When do we limit individual freedom of speech?

• We believe that individual’s freedom to express their opinion should only be limited when there is a clear harm to a specific target. For instance, defamation on politician based on false information is something that we are more than happy to punish. This is precisely why we support the government’s stance on “Il-Gan Best” in the status quo.

#2. Banning "Il-Gan Best" is based under false generalization

• When the government decides to ban "Il-Gan Best", it is not just limiting the freedom of people who insult others, but it also severely harms the right of other citizens who post appropriate contents. We believe that the government is simply generalizing the entire community for the action of some individuals who are irresponsible. For instance, just because there are malicious comments on internet portal sites such as Naver we don’t ban the entire users of Naver. The same standards should be applied to the users of "Il-Gan Best". As a matter of fact, when unreasonable postings appear in "Il-Gan Best", many people also reply by pointing out the error.

• Moreover, we believe that is undermines the right of the minorities to express their view in internet space. We think in a society where there is a clear major opinion and minor opinion, the minorities opinion are often interpreted as ‘extreme’ and ‘incorrect’. However, we believe that difference in opinion should not be generalized as wrong or extreme. We believe that "Il-Gan Best" users often provide their own reasons and evidence to support their arguments. In such context, banning the entire online community simply harms citizens who are responsible even within that group.

Constructive Case 2: Banning "Il-Gan Best" harms the principle of legal system

#1. Innocent until proven guilty

• We believe that the legal system in democratic communities should appreciate the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Governments should always refrain themselves from executing a particular law until there is a clear evidence of a harm being done. This is precisely why possibilities or likelihood are not enough reason to punish or limit individual rights.

#2. Why does banning "Il-Gan Best" harm this principle?

• The problem of the proposed motion is that it not only limits individual’s freedom of speech, but also it assumes that users of "Il-Gan Best" will necessarily post extreme forms of unreasonable hate speech. We reject to this norm. Until the very end when the individual actually commits a crime by posting hate speech based on wrong information, government should assume that the postings will be based on simply expressing their opinion.

• This is not only unjust in principle, but it incentivise individuals with minority to refrain themselves from voicing out their opinion. As we mentioned before, it is often easy for the minorities to be reflected as extreme in online communities for the majorities. Especially in cases where the majority opinion and minority opinion is clear, this pushes the minorities to seek for communities of their own. The moment we ban communities such as "Il-Gan Best", minorities who rely on this community to voice out their opinion will simply lose the opportunity for their voices to be heard.

 

Constructive Case 3: Unclear standards

#1. We believe that the standards for deciding the accused harms of “Il-Gan Best” are extremely subjective and vague.

• The main criticism toward "Il-Gan Best" is their extreme manners in which they express their ideas. Some contents such as sexually assaulting women celebrities are indeed clear. However, many other postings make us question whether it is actually an extreme form of hate speech. For instance, is is a hate speech if someone criticize the current president? Or to be a bit more extreme, should it be illegal for me to post comments and pictures that depict the president as an incompetent child? Even in cases where Korean internet users post ridiculous picture of prime minister Abe to ridicule him, should people be considered as illegal? The problem is- there is no clear legal standard of deciding such issue. Thus it is only possible to judge the cases individually as it requires case by case interpretation of past precedence and legal codes. Banning the entire community neglects the principle of applying clear and fair standards to all citizens.

#2. We also question the characteristics of internet itself.

• Generally in our society, we tend to be more lenient on radical comments in relatively private area. Unlike hate speech in public square, radical comments and postings in "Il-Gan Best" respects the choice of its audience. People are not forced to face the postings of "Il-Gan Best" since in order for them to access such comment is to voluntarily enter into the websites. This means, to certain degree, "Il-Gan Best" is a private community not necessarily a public platform. Sure, all people can access this platform, but with a choice. Parallel example of such case is stand up comedians in the United States. Comedians like Louis CK often make religious and racial comments on different issues. The reason why it’s tolerated nevertheless is because the audiences consent to being heard of such comments. In such context, we question whether the standards of public hate speech can actually be applied to the entire community.

We are NOT saying that the extreme hatred toward the victims of 세월호 can be justified. We are NOT saying that some comments in "Il-Gan Best" that desecrate the victims of 광주 5.18 incidents is good. We are NOT justifying the violent actions promoted by some "Il-Gan Best" users. What we want to establish is the fact that generalizing and limiting the "Il-Gan Best" community as a whole is unjust and unreasonable.