Internet Monitoring and Filtering in South Korea

It has been some time since we've posted anything on efforts by the South Korean government to monitor or filter contents on the internet.  Last week this topic came to the fore again, receiving international publicity, when the Korea Communications Standards Commission announced that it would expand a team that monitors Facebook and Twitter posts for violation of rules.  The Commission defines illegal content as including comments or postings that involve pornography, gambling, drug abuse, the spread of false information and anything that incites or promotes crime. It also includes national security. According to police, as reported by the Chosun Ilbo, more pro-North Korean websites run on servers based overseas out of South Korean jurisdiction. The number of overseas-based pro-North websites detected by police rose from 73 in 2007 to 127 this year. Some 53 of them were based on servers in the United States, 29 in Japan, 19 in China, and 5 in North Korea.