John M. Glionna and Ju-Min Park of the LA Times write that blogger Park Dae-sung, using a pseudonym and misleadingly claiming authority on the topics of economics and finance, has been arrested in Korea for “spreading false rumors on the Internet.”
In a Dec. 29 posting, the online commentator wrote that the South Korean government had ordered financial institutions to stop buying dollars in order to curb the won’s fall against the greenback.
The posting devastated the local foreign exchange market, forcing the nation’s financial authority to spend $2 billion of its reserves as the demand for dollars surged wildly, prosecutors claim.
Korea, which has huge Internet and broadband penetration and usage, is wrestling with some of the most interesting and high-profile cases of real-life consequences (here, the “devasation of the local foreign exchange market”; earlier, the suicide of a famous actress following wild accusations about her on blogs) from online reputation assassination.
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