Deaths of athlete, streamer ignite calls for harsher punishments for internet trolling

Kim In-hyeok, left, a professional volleyball player for Daejeon Samsung Fire Bluefangs and Cho Jang-mi, an online game streamer also known as BJ Jammi, had suffered depression from cyberbullying and died by suicide. Screenshot from Internet

By Lee Hae-rin

Cyberbullying has yet again cut the lives of an athlete and a Twitch streamer short last week.

Kim In-hyeok, 28, a professional volleyball player of the Daejeon Samsung Fire Bluefangs, was found dead at his home in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, on Friday. Police concluded that there was no evidence of foul play related to Kim's death, Saturday.

Kim has vented about psychological damage from internet trolling via social media since last year. He wrote, "I thought I had better ignore decade-long misunderstandings around me, but I am tired of it. Please stop. The malicious comments have harassed me for years ― I can't stand it anymore."

He was referring to criticisms of his appearance, as well as rumors about his sexuality and claims that he appeared in pornography that have mushroomed on the internet.

Cho Jang-mi, 27, also known as BJ Jammi, a Twitch streamer at CJ's creator management agency Dia TV, was also found dead recently. She had been reeling from the trauma of internet trolling, according to a member of her family, Sunday.

Cho's bereaved family member who identified himself as her uncle wrote on her Twitch page, Saturday, "Jang-mi has suffered serious depression from malicious comments and rumors, which led her to suicide." The family will take legal action against the accusers responsible for the spread of rumors and misinformation about Cho, he wrote.

Cho entered the media platform as a game streaming creator in 2019 and had over 290,000 subscribers on Twitch and YouTube combined. She has been accused of being a "feminist" by internet users from male-dominant online communities such as DC Inside and FM Korea and suffered extreme emotional distress from cyberbullying.

In May 2020, Cho said her mother who helped her manage the comments section took her own life due to the bombardment of malicious comments and appealed to internet users to stop the vicious insults.

Their death saddened internet users. "The vicious comments killed people, please stop," one wrote. Another wrote, "All these haters are responsible for their deaths and deserve punishment."

According to the information network law, malicious commentators could be subject to up to three years in jail or fines up to 30 million won ($25,010) for defamation. In addition the law allows for up to seven years in jail and fines up to 50 million won for contempt, the act of defaming someone directly by saying something insulting to the person.

According to a police report obtained by lawmaker Han Byung-do of the Democratic Party of Korea last October, over 75,000 cases of cyber defamation have been reported over the past five years. Only 69.3 percent of reported cases led to arrests, among which only 0.06 percent, or 43 people, were detained.

Previously in 2019, the suicides of K-pop stars Sulli and Goo Hara linked to spiteful comments prompted public grief and put a spotlight on internet trolling. In response, Kakao has removed the comment section for entertainment news articles on its Korean portal Daum and Naver has been removing comments with abusive language.

Brigham Young University research published in the Journal of Social Media and Society last June found that "individuals with dark triad personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) combined with schadenfreude ― a German word meaning that one derives pleasure from another's misfortune ― were more likely to demonstrate trolling behaviors."

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