South Korean Crackdown On Internet Rumors Leads to Use of Foreign Web Services

Unless the Korean government wants to become like China and start banning foreign websites cracking down on Internet rumor mongers will never work:

South Korea’s president is cracking down on rumors in cyberspace in a campaign that threatens the popularity of Kakao Talk, the leading social media service in a country with ambitions to become a global technology leader.

Prosecutors announced the crackdown two weeks ago after President Park Geun-hye complained about insults directed at her and said false rumors “divided the society.”

That rattled users of Kakao Talk, a smartphone-based messaging app used by 35 million of South Korea’s 50 million people. It prompted a surge of interest in a previously little-known German competitor, Telegram.

Rankey.com, a research firm, said an estimated 610,000 South Korean smartphone users visited Telegram on Wednesday, a 40-fold increase over Sept. 14, before the crackdown was announced. The company said its estimate was based on a randomly selected group of 60,000 people it follows regularly.

On Friday, Telegram was the most downloaded free app in Apple’s App Store in South Korea. On Google Inc.’s store, Telegram was the No. 2 downloaded free communications app, behind only Kakao Talk.

South Korean users left reviews on Telegram saying they left Kakao Talk to seek “asylum.” They asked Telegram to add a Korean language service.  [Associated Press]

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