National News: The Minerva Effect & Freedom of Speech By Melanie Kim

Who Is Minerva? Park Dae Sung (31) uploaded more than 100 anonymous postings in Daum. He predicted the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers, the crash of the Korean currency and the effects of the US mortgage crisis on South Korea. This led to his secret fame and his commentaries attracted an average of 100,000 viewers per posting. Newspapers reported his predictions and the government strived to dispute his claims. For months, both the media and authorities have tried to identify Minerva and finally, on Wednesday Jan 7 th, he has been arrested. Charges: spreading false online information with a harmful intent (5 years in prison).

What’s the Big Deal? Among Asian economies, South Korea has been most visibly affected by the global financial crisis as demand for exports slumped and banks tightened their lending. Thus the government is very sensitive to negative reports on its economy. Moreover, the professionals and the citizens believe his predictions, which led people to say that his blogging “affected foreign exchange markets.” On Dec. 29 th, he posted that the government issued an "emergency order" to financial firms and major corporations to stop buying U.S. dollars in a dire effort to arrest the fall of the Korean won, though officials had previously asked large companies to stop hoarding dollars. False Identity: On Jan 5 th, he said he has a master’s degree from overseas and worked on Wall Street.

Minerva’s Power As part of their efforts to ensure they got the right man, prosecutors gave him a computer with an Internet connection and asked him to write an economic forecast for In 45 minutes, Park wrote a two-page commentary, complete with a diagram that predicted a hard time for South Koreans as exports suffer, domestic consumption declines and factories cut production. Shortly after he wrote the analysis while under detention, Hyundai Motor, the country's largest carmaker, announced that it was cutting its production by 25 percent to 30 percent.

What Are People Saying? Park: "I wrote articles to help those people alienated from the government - small merchants, individuals and ordinary people who had suffered from the financial crisis. I plead not guilty.” Civic group of lawyers for a Democratic Society: "The government's mistakes and incapability has made Minerva what he is today.” Analysts and domestic media: “Park's popularity also reflected widespread distrust in Lee's handling of the economy, despite his campaign promises to become the ‘economy president.’” Democratic Party in Korea: “Minerva’s arrest will lead to the demise of free expression on the internet.” WHAT ABOUT THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH???

What’s the Importance? This demonstrates the power of blogging and the problems it can cause the world's most wired country. It also raised questions about how much freedom of expression should be tolerated in cyberspace. Without freedom of speech, how is our government different from North Korea’s? How is the world going to think about this event?

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