Accountability

Accountability is a buzz word in politics that gets thrown around. It's a word and an idea that needs to be developed in Korea on a level that is difficult to imagine. The education system is ripe with examples of no accountability, and Korean society at large is the best example whereby every problem Korea has is someone else's fault, with the normal scapegoats being Japan, America and sometimes China. I remember one distinct conversation I had with the trainer at my gym who was making perfection sense describing many of Korea's many problems in very clear terms. And then he explained the reason for these problems was that when Japan occupied Korea they taught Koreans only bad ways of doing things, and when they left they took all the good things with them and left only the bad...

So in honor of accontability, I give you this story from the Ilbo

In it it explains that web portals have been fined for online defamation. The portals played a role based on what the story explains, but the key issue missing is personal accountability. It says that the mother of the girl played a role, but mentions no fines against her. It mentions that many people played a role in spreading the info about him, and they did not get fined either. And perhaps most important of all, it doesn't say that the claims were untrue, only that they were damaging.

Accountability is lacking all around with this incident, from the law, to those involved in the portals, right down to the guy who left his pregnant girlfriend, who clearly wasn't being accountable for his actions/sperm.