Daily Lesson from Life 05 October 2008

"S Korea to launch crackdown on malicious online rumours
Police blame the suicide of a local actress on vicious web messages. -Sun, Oct 05, 2008 AFP

SEOUL - SOUTH Korean police said on Sunday they plan a crackdown on people who spread malicious rumours on the Internet, a practice they blame for last week's suicide of a local actress.

The National Police Agency said it would have 900 officers investigating online as part of a month-long operation beginning on Monday to hunt, arrest and punish those who spread false and vicious rumours on the Internet.

The agency said in a statement 'the spread of malicious and groundless messages on the Internet recently led to their victim's suicide' referring to the death of Choi Jin Sil on Thursday.

Ms Choi, 40, a mother of two, was found hanging from a length of elastic at her Seoul home. Police concluded she had committed suicide.

Police investigators, citing her relatives and friends, said Ms Choi had been in agony over Internet rumours that she had lent a huge sum of money to a local actor who killed himself in early September under heavy debts.“

The curse of technology? This is a sad story of a human being being driven to commit suicide due to vicious lies being said about her.

Lessons for me are:

1. information is powerful. Wrong use of it or false information can lead to dire consequence. The targeted persons just have to be very strong and hold on to the truth. If you have not done anything wrong, you can happily ignored whatever rumours being said about you;

2. readers of cyber news, including this type of blog, must maintain his or her independent minds to make conscious decision if whatever is said or promulgated make any sense at all. It must be filtered. There CANNOT be a wholesale acceptance of whatever is written is truth and nothing but the truth! Readers need to be intelligent and questioning readers;

3. to those who perpetuate or manufactured lies and untruth on cyberspace, you have to be prepared for karma. Retribution. One who use the sword will live and die by the sword. If you are unprincipled and use cyberspace as a mean to make money or fame for yourself ONLY without regard to truth and conscience, there will be a pay-back time - not immediately perhaps but it will sure come eventually.

My condolences to the deceased family and may all people realized that everyone has a responsibility to holding the truth when we said something that may hurt another fellow human being.