As an emblem of women’s education and a cradle for women leaders, Ewha has long been a target of envy as well as criticism. With an increasing number of vicious online remarks, school began tracking malicious comments to take legal action in January. Students can now report these comments through the new Cyberbullying Report Board on the school website.
“After what happened at school last year, rumors of the school went out of hand, even attacking members not affiliated with the incident. This urged the school to take action, and as a result the Cyberbullying Report Board was established,” an official of Communications explained. “Through its establishment, we wish to protect both the school’s reputation and the rights of the school members. Also, it may work as a wakeup call regarding the misogyny in our society.”
Cyberbullying Report Board is situated at the bottom of the Ewha website, under “Service.” Upon clicking, the user will be directed to the reporting page. On the page, students will be asked to determine general information regarding the comment, such as the content, form and the type of media. The title of the post and the following URL will also be collected. Students can attach screenshots of the problematic comments as a PDF file, and state the reason of reporting. Any files exceeding 10MB can be e-mailed to imewha@ewha.ac.kr.
“How and when the legal action takes place differs from report to report, and not all comments are subject to legal action,” an official of Communications said. “Communications will categorize the comments and consult a lawyer before selecting comments to report to Korean National Police Agency Cyber Bureau.”
The results of the legal actions will be shared with Ewha students through posts on the “Message to Ewha members” section on Eureka site.
Students are mostly supportive of the school’s hands-on approach to the situation, and are eagerly participating. A hundred sixty eight reports were received within the first 24 hours, and the number has exceeded 400 over the first three weeks.
“I personally think that this should have been done a long time ago,” mentioned Kim Min-ah, a student majoring in History. “It is such a relief to see it happen now. I think people should never be targets of criticism simply because they are associated with a certain school.”
“I think it is great that a lot of students are participating,” said Kim Da-hyun, another student majoring in History. “However, I am still doubtful of the actual effectiveness of this system. I am not sure if this is actually going to lead to a decrease in malicious comments. A few months would have to pass before we see the results.”
Apart from reporting to the school, Communications mentioned that it is also important to take swift action.
“Please actively respond to the comments by making use of ‘report’ and ‘request delete’ buttons on the actual pages where comments are posted,” said an official of Communications.