To Ensure the Openness and Fairness of the Internet

by Kyoungmi (Kimmy) Oh | Researcher at Open Net Korea

Kyoungmi (Kimmy) Oh, a researcher at Open Net Korea, participated in the Debconf 2024, the annual Debian Developer Conference, and delivered the history and activities of Open Net Korea to expand the network.

1. Who we are

Open Net Korea was founded in January 2013 as a digital human rights organization in South Korea. Let’s start with this image. This image is about our organization’s mission and vision:

Our mission at Open Net Korea is to establish social principles and norms that remain unwavering despite changes in administration or political ideology. To achieve this, Open Net aims to protect the internet space, enable social movements, and amplify social voices in support of these principles and norms.

To fulfill our mission and vision, Open Net Korea is to set the following goals:

• Uphold and protect the philosophy of a free and open internet.
• Preserve a public sphere where citizens, government, and corporations can collaborate.
• Prevent government authority from infringing on human rights.
• Increase government transparency.
• Protect the principle of net neutrality.

Since our establishment, we have diversified our activities to achieve these goals as strategies through strategic litigation including public interest litigation, legislative activities or blocking legislation, lobbying politicians, public campaigns, research, educating the public, and forming solidarities with CSOs both domestically and internationally.

Under these frameworks, Open Net Korea mainly focuses on freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is the principle of digital human rights. 

The previously mentioned mission, vision, goals, and strategies are all aimed at achieving the ultimate purpose of safeguarding freedom of expression. Human rights, including digital rights, cannot be guaranteed without freedom of expression. Injustices that violate human rights, such as gender discrimination and racial discrimination, and human rights abuses committed by states, corporations, the groups that have power, or individuals cannot be known if these crimes or violations are not disseminated or disclosed. Without freedom of expression, improvements and changes to these injustices cannot be achieved. 

The internet has revolutionized the way information and knowledge are accumulated and shared. Before the development of the internet, information was distributed and controlled by a few who monopolized the media capable of delivering messages. Only when freedom of expression is guaranteed can abusing power and violence be monitored. Thus, adhering to principles that are not swayed by political beliefs, ideologies, or changes in regimes is our mission, and protecting the internet space where expression can be amplified has become our vision. As one can easily guess, we represent and protect social minorities including women, people with disabilities, sexual minorities, journalists, whistleblowers, artists, etc.

2. Specific Activities

2.1. Public Interest Litigation

Open Net is a civil society organization that started with public interest litigation. South Korea is one of the few countries that made internet popularization possible in the shortest period globally. As soon as the 2000s began, there were attempts to legislate to control Internet sites and content by governments. In 2003, discussions on introducing an internet real-name law began, starting with the then-ruling Grand National Party, citing the need to control malicious comments, defamation, and the spread of false information. In 2006, the Internet real-name law was passed with the agreement of the then-ruling Uri Party and the Grand National Party through amendments to the ACT ON PROMOTION OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK UTILIZATION AND INFORMATION PROTECTION. Open Net was established in 2013 by a coalition of civil society organizations, academics, and internet-related companies who were concerned that the internet real-name law violated citizens’ freedom of expression. Their collaborative efforts contributed to the Constitutional Court’s ruling on unconstitutionality in 2012. Following this victory, the core members of the coalition decided to formally create Open Net.

Public interest litigation remains one of our crucial strategies to protect freedom of expression. South Korea is one of the few countries with a government censorship agency. The Korea Communications Standards Commission regulates not only information that is clearly illegal but also content that is likely to significantly undermine public morals or social norms. As a result, government regulation of internet content is a common practice in South Korea. While the government claims that the purpose of this regulation is to protect society, it often makes socially vulnerable groups even more vulnerable.

**What is the KCSC?

The KCSC was established under Article 18 of the ACT ON THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF KOREA COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, which is to regulate traditional media. The KCSC is taking down the internet contents under Article 44 Provision 7 of the ENFORCEMENT DECREE OF THE ACT ON PROMOTION OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK UTILIZATION AND INFORMATION PROTECTION and Article 21 Provision 4 of the ACT ON THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF KOREA COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION. A more problematic point of this regulation is that not only individual internet users but also government institutions. Most government institutions such as the Ministry of Food and Drug, Ministry of Culture, sport, and Tourism, National Intelligence Service, and even the police, can address complaints about certain content and request to take down it. Plus, the KCSC can also remove the contents itself as well. It means that the contents taking down decisions are easily affected by political ideology. Among the public interest lawsuits filed by Open Net, the most notable is the one challenging the KCSC’s decision to block access to “North Korea Tech,” a website specializing in North Korean IT technology information run by a British journalist. The KCSC had cited the website’s alleged “praise and glorification of North Korea in violation of the National Security Act” as the reason for the block. Open Net won the lawsuit against this decision. These are reasons why we call the KCSC the government censorship body and keep filing strategic litigations against it. However, these efforts do not always succeed.

2.1.1. The Recent Public Interest Litigation

The recent public interest litigation supports Women on Web in their case against website blocking by the KCSC. On December 13, 2020, the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) ruled to block the Women on Web website, which offers information on women’s health, sexual and reproductive rights, and medical abortion, aiding women in obtaining safe, timely, and affordable abortion care. This ruling was similar to one issued on March 11, 2019.

In April 2019, South Korea’s Constitutional Court decriminalized abortion, and the procedure has been completely decriminalized since 2021. However, the government has not approved medication for medical abortion. The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that medical abortion can be safely self-managed at home up to the twelfth week with adequate information and support from healthcare providers, without requiring specialized medical care or direct supervision. This governmental inaction has left South Korean women needing abortions in a legal vacuum.

We filed a lawsuit but failed both the first and second trial. The court justified the KCSC’s decision to shut down the website to block the distribution of medical abortion pills supposedly because such distribution is threatening women’s safety. However, this ruling is making women more vulnerable because they are now forced to pay high costs for surgery, which is the only option for abortion. We now are preparing for the last trial and the constitutional challenge as well.

In Between the first trial and the second trial, we also did a campaign with Women on Web. We published several announcements to criticize the court’s decision and also did a petition. Over 400 ppl signed on it. A woman left a short but impressive comment with her singing that she could survive because of the pills from Women on Web. 

2.2. To Protect Net Neutrality Principle

Open Net is also dedicated to creating a fair internet environment. Notably, we have prevented the passage of the network usage fee bill, which would have legally mandated charges for internet network usage. Since the early 2010s, South Korean telecommunications companies have been striving to extract more network usage fees from the platforms. This was because most households already had internet access, making it difficult for telcos to further increase their total corporate profit. So the telcos lobbied politicians and lawmakers, leading to the 2015 amendment of the “Notice on Interconnection Standards for Telecommunication Facilities (namely, the sender-pay rule),” which took effect in 2016. The sender-pay rule required telcos to pay for the amount of traffic they generate between themselves, but the telcos charged the costs to their customers, the platforms.

The sender-pay rule changed the direct interconnection relationship between major network operators (we have three major telcos KT, SKT, and LGU) from a no-settlement arrangement to one based on the volume of outgoing traffic. This created new settlement costs within the domestic internet network ecosystem. As a result, since 2016, internet access fees (IP Transit Fees) in Seoul have skyrocketed, becoming 5-6 times more expensive than in the US, 8 times more than in London and Paris, and 10 times more than in Frankfurt (according to Telegeography data). Consequently, many startups and content providers have already left South Korea. More recently, Twitch withdrew from the Korean market. 

In 2022, the National Assembly proposed a network usage fee bill that would extend the toll, previously applicable only between network operators, directly to content providers. The National Assembly claims that the network usage fee bill will be applied only to large platforms. However, the majority of content on these large platforms is provided by individual creators and small to medium-sized content providers. Once the bill passes, contrary to the Assembly’s intent, everyone will ultimately be trapped under the “network usage fee” system. According to the proposed bill, if large platforms host popular content, network operators will have to charge fees proportional to the content’s popularity. This means that popular content can no longer be hosted for free. Platforms will have to either charge viewers or the people uploading the content. Existing paid platforms will have no choice but to charge higher fees specifically for Korean users, and there will be fewer popular content postings for Koreans to enjoy. Imagine that if all the countries in the world pass the network usage fee, the Internet that connects the world will no longer be the Internet. 

DISCO, which stands for “Disruptive Competition,” a project operated by CCIA, a nonprofit organization based in Brussels, Belgium has assessed that “the current situation in South Korea starkly reveals the disadvantages of implementing metered rates. 

The passage of the network usage fee bill clearly violates the principle of net neutrality, which states that everyone should have equal access to the internet. The erosion of net neutrality principles will stifle freedom of expression and severely hinder the value and philosophy of the internet, which is the free flow of information. Not only popular content but also critical writings about the government will not be circulated. Criticisms of the government need to go viral, but if they do, additional usage fees will be charged.

Open Net was the only civic organization in the country that strongly opposed the passage of the network usage fee bill in 2022, advocating for the protection of net neutrality principles. The organization attended a parliamentary forum to explain the structure of internet access and the harmful effects that would arise if the network usage fee bill were passed. We published several announcements to educate the public and shape public opinion, built international solidarity and had nearly 300,000 people’s participation in a petition. In South Korea, a civic petition is usually considered successful with about 300 participants. We successfully blocked the passage of the bill.

2.3. Forming Solidarity with CSOs both Domestically and Internationally

Open Net is continuously expanding its areas of activity and topics. 

now We are forming alliances with South East Asian countries to resist state violence. The Southeast Asia Collaborative Policy Network is a network of CSOs in Southeast Asia that aims to promote internet freedom by developing the capacity of CSOs to engage and have a dialogue with ICT companies, governments, and ASEAN. While the internet, including social media and other applications, has been beneficial to many in the SEA region, rights violations have also been observed and reported. While big tech is doing platformization and increased datafication, governments try to limit the big tech and suppress internet users through regulatory frameworks. On the part of governments, some have pursued new rules for Internet users and tech companies on access to the Internet, content, and data over the past years. In the context of the region, we must not forget that many of these governments were authoritarian in the old days, and some still are until now. As big tech is doing platformization and increased datafication, governments try to limit the big tech and to suppress the internet users through regulatory frameworks. SEA CPN has called on tech companies to report rights violations on platforms and for these companies to be more transparent. Since the establishment of the network, there have been some engagements and dialogues between and among CSOs and ICT companies.

2.4. To expand our Activities

Additionally, this year, we are planning a new project in collaboration with data activists. First, we are considering participation in making the Asia Parliamentary transparency survey with over 10 Asian countries. Second, Data Digging and an Analysis of Elderly Women’s Lives in Korean Rural Areas with data activists including software engineers and developers to disclose the lives of unmarried or widowed elderly women in South Korean rural areas that have been rarely focused on even in feminism.  

If you find Open Net’s activities interesting and see the potential for meaningful collaboration in our work, please feel free to reach out to us first.

Debconf-2024-Open-Net

Korean version text