One of the largest sites affected was Google—
owned YouTube, which chose to block South Korean
users from uploading content rather than collect
RRNs. The system was easily thwarted, however, by
simply changing the location setting for an account
to Worldwide. Press reports even indicated that the
YouTube channel for the presidential office used this
simple ploy.
While pressure from citizens’ groups and court
challenges have rolled back some restrictions, the
threat of criminal liability has fostered a culture of
fear and self-censorship. ISPs are ultimately held
responsible if inappropriate—immoral, violent,
obscene, speculative, or antisocial—content is found
on their networks. RRNs must still be proffered
for adults to access online games at night because
curfews bar minors. Mobile service providers do not
yet know if the ruling exempts them from collecting
RRNs, and there have been several high-profile
prosecutions involving online postings on TWitter
and Facebook. Searching the Internet is often
unproductive because Web sites prohibit search
engines from indexing their pages.