Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Plenty of people were aware the Internet was playing a larger and larger role in the
lives of young South Koreans—most of them bank, shop, date, forge friendships, and
form opinions online—but few foresaw just how powerful a tool it had become.
In the summer of 2008, thousands of locals, many only high-school age, began
taking to the streets of central Seoul to voice their discontent with the administration
of then-President Lee Myung-bak, who had stoked anger by failing to consult the
public on a series of controversial decisions, including one to reopen the South
Korean market to U.S. beef imports. Outraged citizens had flooded the message
boards of popular Internet portals such as Naver, forming makeshift activist groups
and discussing ways to push Lee from power.
In just a few weeks, scattershot protests had turned into massive nightly candlelit
vigils that effectively shut down the city center and continued for weeks on end.
While there were a few scuffles, the campaign was relatively free of the large-scale
violence that had accompanied student-led protests in the not-so-distant past. It were
also notable for drawing in many ordinary working families, including their children,
which often gave the whole event the tone of a festival.
The most remarkable thing about the demonstrations was the way technology sup-
ported them from start to finish. Websites regularly updated the public on Lee's al-
leged transgressions. Mobile-phone text messages advised people on where to rally;
reporters and camera operators from blogs and online newspapers documented the
entire movement and, many argued, helped keep the police in check by providing a
24/7 view of events on the ground. And though the president stuck to his guns and
the protests eventually fizzled out, the broader campaign was apparently successful
enough to worry the authorities. In the wake of the protests politicians enacted reg-
ulations that made online defamation a criminal offense and also moved to limit the
ability of citizens to publish anonymous comments or opinions online. Activists have
decried the moves as a crackdown on free speech, and in 2011 press freedom ad-
vocacy group Reporters Without Borders placed South Korea on its list of countries
where the Internet is “under surveillance.”
KT, LG, and SK Broadband are the main home Internet providers and will usually be
able to complete an installation just a day or two after it's requested. Installation fees are
typically 30,000 won, and while the company will supply all the necessary equipment, it
may charge a monthly rental of 7,000-10,000 won for a modem and other peripherals. In-
