It was sparked, the Korea Times says, when some 2CH users began offering praise to Russians for the recent killing of a South Korean student (an incident you can read about at Brian's here and here):
The attacks were triggered by comments praising Russians for the killing of a Korean student in Moscow.If I'm right about which South Korean student was killed (and I pray there has been only one), then the murder occurred in Barnaul, near Siberian Russia’s border with Kazakhstan, thousands of miles from Moscow.
Some postings claimed that the killing was not racially motivated and Russians were doing "good deeds" after the event occurred.
2ch saw postings claiming that Kim Yu-na won the gold medal in the Vancouver Olympics thanks to judges bribed by Korea. Such anti-Yu-na comments increased when Japan's Mao Asada lost to Kim and had to settle for a silver medal.
I have heard a great deal about the anti-Yuna hate fest that grew among some Japanese, but that in no way would justify anything like this. Indeed, even the hate-mongering and — dare I say — violence-inciting words from 2CH do not warrant this kind of illegal activity (hacking, that is). At the same time, though, I'd hate to see the ROK authorities go after the South Koreans responsible when those at 2CH who posted what may be illegal hate speech go unpunished. Maybe Lee and Hatoyama need to do a sit-down or at least a call-through on this one. [HT to Wangkon via email]
The internet brings the worst out of people. Interesting, though, that breitbart.com doesn't mention the killing in Russia:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9E5VFVG1&show_article=1
Neither does this place, which I'm guessing is a fairly representative snapshot of 2CH netizens. I'm happy to entertain the possibility that's an inaccurate impression on my part (and I guess that the Japanese netizens are about as representative of average Japanese as Korean netizens are of average Korean, which is to say, not particularly all that much.
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of Japanese in California and Hawaii (and Korea) and almost none have sentiments like the link above, though many have read such sentiments.
And I'm guessing AP didn't mention the killing in Russia as a catalyst because no one had mentioned it in the English blogs yet. ;)
ReplyDeleteYour link in the phrase "Neither does this place" just leads to your blog again. Normally, I'd just move on, but I'm curious as to what place could be a representative snapshot of 2ch.
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing that out, ledtim. Blogspot does some weird things sometimes. I wish i could go back and edit comments.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this is the link I meant. And I should qualify what I'm saying and say I'm guessing it is a fairly representative snapshot of nationalist 2CH netizens. Or at least the Korea-bashing population of the 2CH netizenry.
Third time's the charm? :)
ReplyDeleteBlogspot hates me. I don't know what backslash it thinks I didn't type, but I typed it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the links on a different computer, so you may have to wait an hour or so.
and nothing of value was lost.
ReplyDeleteledtim, here is the Sankaku Complex link.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Taehun, This is the kind of war where nobody actually gets hurt. Well, feelings get hurt, but no one gets killed.
ReplyDelete