Last September 16th, there was a speech by President Park that blasphemous voices toward the president are too excessive. Because of the speech, police announced the organization of a special investigative team about cyber defamation. After the news that the government is inspecting Kakao Talk, many Kakao Talk users exiled themselves to foreign mobile messengers which have servers in foreign countries. Also, 1,670,000 people left from other domestic mobile messengers, such as Line, My People and Nate on, within only a week after reading the news. However, Telegram, which is a German mobile messenger, gained about 20 times more users, from 25,458 to 521,903 people, within only a week. Because of the departure, police elucidated that mobile messengers are not always being monitored, but people do not trust them.
  This kind of departure has not only occurred these days. In 2002, when importing U.S. beef was accepted, there was an internet debate called ‘Agora’ on the Internet portal site Daum. ‘Agora’ was an epicenter of candlelight vigils and a forum of debate which caused a consumer boycott against conservative newspapers. However, a person, whose ID was ‘Minerva’ and who wrote revolutionary writing in ‘Agora’, was arrested by the government. Due to this news, many people who used ‘Agora’ left it and moved to Google. People thought the internet web sites that had servers in foreign countries could help them escape from the government’s cyber inspection.
  5 years have passed, and internet sites have changed to mobile, but the reasons for cyber departure haven’t changed. Lee Hee-soo(’13, Dept. of Housing and Interior Design),  who changed to Telegram from Kakao Talk, said, “Because the government can look at my Kakao Talk messages anytime they want, I feel like my privacy is not protected. That’s why I changed to Telegram.” If the government’s interference continues, trust for the government will decrease and, at the same time, the stagnancy of the domestic IT industry might occur.

By Seo Yeo-ryung
yr34@cbnu.ac.kr