Watchdog panelist slammed for blog photos of genitals

By Cho Ji-hyun
Controversy is escalating over whether it was appropriate for a member of a media watchdog to post photos that some argue are “sexually offensive” on his personal blog.
Last Wednesday, Park Kyung-sin, one of the nine commissioners at the Korea Communications Standards Commission, posted screen-grabs of photos of multiple male genitals published on other blogs on his own site, asking visitors whether the photos had any sexual impact on them.
Park posted the photos after six out of nine of the commissioners had already labeled them as being too sexual and problematic, demanding removal from the blogs they had been posted on at a general meeting on July 14.
Park, a 41-year-old professor at Korea University, was among the three members who ruled against the majority, stating that he found it difficult to understand why such photos were controversial or sexually humiliating.
“The commission has reached a conclusion that male sexual organs are pornography when it does not even involve the sexual act itself,“ the professor wrote on his blog. “I’m curious as to how such photos may cause social disorder and how it could serve to drive the libido.”
Aside from the fact that Park was a member of the media watchdog, another part of the controversy lies in that the professor had posted the photos online when online portal operators are mandated to remove content from their sites if ruled inappropriate by the commission, according to incumbent laws on information and communication networks.
The commission was expected to hold a sub-committee meeting on Park’s online posting on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Park removed the photos from his blog.
(sharon@heraldcorp.com)