Namuwiki
Namuwiki is a Korean-language wiki based in Paraguay. The website was launched on 17 April 2015 and is powered by the proprietary wiki software The Seed.
According to The Hankyoreh, as of October 2024 Namuwiki had 2.2 times more articles and 7.2 times more traffic than the Korean Wikipedia. Similarweb ranks Namuwiki as the fifth most visited website in South Korea. According to The Korea Economic Daily, Namuwiki had a maximum daily user count of 2 million, and a maximum daily pageview count of 45 million in 2021, making it the seventh most visited website in Korea that year.
History
In April 2015, Rigveda Wiki suffered a massive community dispute when the site owner, Cheongdong, was discovered to have secretly changed the user agreement to privatize the wiki for his personal profit. Users vandalized articles in protest, forcing the closure of the servers. In response, Namuwiki was created as a fork by a user named Namu on 17 April. The article count of Namuwiki surpassed that of Rigveda Wiki by 25 April, and surpassed Rigveda Wiki's original article count before its vandalism on 12 May. Namuwiki emerged as one of the biggest wikis forked from the Rigveda Wiki, and soon became its de facto replacement.In May 2016, Namu transferred Namuwiki's server management rights to a new owner, UmanLe S.R.L., a company based in Asunción, Paraguay.
In August 2016, a Namuwiki user created an article about "equalism". The article falsely claimed that a supposed new ideology, "equalism", had appeared in the West, and made multiple remarks against feminist ideologies. As South Korea was seeing heated online debates about radical feminist website Megalia during this time, the article quickly gained a lot of attraction and contributions. Although most of the assertions and references included in the article were false or fabricated, contents of it were widely spread over Korean society, resulting in false articles about the concept of equalism. The false article existed for longer than six months, until a feminist wiki named Femiwiki brought forward specific and definite arguments on 24 January 2017. Soon, it was proved that most of the claims were false and the original idea of equalism was mostly a fabrication.
In September 2018, the site began displaying advertisements on the top banner of its pages, ostensibly to help fund its server rental fees.
On 9 January 2019, Korean politician Cho Hae-joo formally announced that he had deleted material written on his Namuwiki page, as it contained "false elements", which resulted in political backlash.
In 2022, before the presidential election, a public servant under Yangyang County, Gangwon province, was caught after the individual used Namuwiki to smear a certain candidate in his work time using his work PC and cellphone during June to December 2021. The incident was revealed by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety in a press release.
In November 2023, the Democratic Party accused then president Yoon Suk Yeol of "preparing for martial law" on the basis of 130 officers deleting their Namuwiki pages. In a press conference, Democratic Party Member of Parliament Yang Mun-suk said: "130 officers of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces have deleted or have taken the preemptive actions for the removal of their Namuwiki pages since last April. I have strong suspicions that these actions are not just flying rumors but preparations for emergencies such as martial law."
During the 2024 South Korean legislative election, Jang Ye-Chan, a former member of the People Power Party supreme council, was dropped from nomination by the PPP due to his controversies regarding rough speech which started from a part from his Namuwiki article.
Scrutiny by the Korea Communications Standards Commission, 2024
On August 14, 2024, the Communications Review Subcommittee, one of the smaller committees of the Korea Communications Standards Commission, postponed a resolution regarding a previous incident where two civilians who had small followings on social media requested the deletion of their personal information, pictures with their ex-lovers, and other inappropriate content from Namuwiki, while issuing consultancy from one of their subsidiaries, special committee for telecommunication consultations. This was a change from their previous stance regarding Namuwiki articles, where they had stated that requests of similar matter regarding Namuwiki were not applicable. According to a MBN's article, members newly decided that the former standards were "Not in line with the trend of the times... It would be reasonable to accept the request for the deletion of information on sites such as Namuwiki if the person themselves requested it", and held the decision on hold.On October 15, PPP legislator Kim Jang-Kyum said that "Namuwiki is becoming a distributing channel for illegal content such as deepfake porn, and fake news. It is in the structure of a 'voluntary encyclopedia by the collective intellect', but is subject to malicious edits, stigmatization, and false accusations", and that "The government should come up with powerful solutions to deal with Namuwiki's dangerous and illegal elements."
On October 16, the KCSC delivered a resolution of the 'blocking' of personal information of influencers on Namuwiki. The Special Committee for Telecommunication Consultations, accepting the pleas from two influencers, one saying that photos of the individual with his/her previous lover alongside photos of physical affection, or "스킨쉽", have been on Namuwiki for a long time, and the other saying that Namuwiki had the individual's "life contents from 2013 to 2023 in its articles, alongside the individual's photos, real name, birthplace/time, nationality, body measures, education, prizes and awards, and even family information", resolved that rectification was needed. The Special Committee for Telecommunication Consultations further stated that this was a "decision made in consideration of the rapid spread of Internet media and its increasing influence day by day", and that they were "applying the relevant regulations more strictly than before, reflecting the recent reality that can cause enormous damage to individuals by spreading unwanted portraits or privacy information."
To the above, on the same day, Umanle S.R.L., the mother company of Namuwiki, said that "In order to prevent infringement of rights caused by Namuwiki documents, we have internally established a system and faithfully responded to the demands of rights holders", and that "We express great concern and regret over the decision to block access and the announcement of the media." Later, Namuwiki officially verified that they had made the statement through Media Today on their question board. Umanle S.R.L. further stated on another request on Namuwiki's question board that they did not know which articles the KCSC was taking action against and that it was only guessing which ones they were by the press and previous letters sent by the pleading individuals, and that it was more confusing to specify which part the problem was due to the pleading individual's website still displaying the same information the individual was claiming as "an invasion of privacy."
On October 21, 2024, during a national audit regarding the, a standing committee of the National Assembly, Kim Jang-kyom further stated that the website was "being used as a tool for all kinds of illegal activities such as digital sex crimes, copyright infringement, personal information infringement, etc." PPP legislator Choi Hyung-du said "If you search, Namuwiki comes out first. It is said to be a citizen participation type, but if is unidentifiable and unable to be rectified, I wonder if it isn't necessary to exercise sovereignty like France or other South-American countries and control it clearly or to block it outright." Ryu Hee-lim, the current chairman of the Korea Communications Standards Commission, said "We have recently changed our reviewing standards and are now strongly requesting for deletion in the case of any privacy, portrait violation cases.", "if our rectification requests are not met in the future, we are considering a temporary complete-blockage."
According to the KCSC on October 23, when one of the influencers mentioned above requested the deletion of a Namuwiki article with a photo of the individual with his/her ex, the publisher removed it voluntarily. According to Yonhap the other influencer's family information was also taken down by Namuwiki.
In an Hankyoreh article, it is said that on 29 October, a KCSC figure said "if keeps idly ignoring our corrections, we can further resolute a 'Recommendation for Strengthening Self-Regulation' and a 'Warning', and if Namuwiki continues to not improve after our 'Warning', we can undergo a 'temporary complete-blockage'. We are currently trying to increase the effectiveness of our correction demands by increasing co-operation with Namuwiki, and will continue to respond appropriately as the situation develops.
On 30 October, aforementioned legislator Kim Jang-kyom, belonging to the PPP and also a member of the PPP's Special Media Committee, posted on Facebook stating that " real owners and administrators are not identifiable and are not subject to Korean law, and that he is planning to sue them in Paraguay's court if any legal troubles should occur." The post connected it to ties with the left leaning media and further criticized Namuwiki, claiming that there are further problems such as Namuwiki distributing illegal deep-fake content, the owning and operation of Korean website Arcalive and that Umanle S.R.L.'s profits were estimated to be over USD 7 million per year. In the same post, he further added that
On 1 November 2024, the PPP's Special Media Committee, stated that
The post also quoted MBC's 3rd labor union, saying that 'As MBC's third labor union pointed out in a statement yesterday, left-leaning media are advocating Namuwiki as an "online encyclopedia jointly compiled by users" in terms of freedom of expression, but this is an abuse of freedom of expression.MBC's third labor union pointed out, "There are frequent acts of indiscriminately publishing other people's personal information as well as fake news, and the problem is serious because it is a structure that does not allow filing complaints or protesting.'
Coincidentally, that afternoon, Namuwiki was temporarily unusable, with pages displaying this error message: "잠시 서버 작업이 진행되고 있거나, 일시적인 오류일 수 있습니다. 아래의 새로 고침 버튼을 눌러보세요". This succession of events led to the arousing suspicions of users regarding the reason why Namuwiki was unusable, with Kim Jang-Kyum's Namuwiki article itself later trending on 1 November. The temporary issue was fixed a few hours later.
On 3 November, PPP legislator Kim Jang-Kyum launched the process for a law Korean news outlets dubbed the "Namuwiki transparency law". The new law legislator Kim is pushing for is a revised bill for the Act on promotion of information and communications network utilization and information protection. According to Kim, the revisal's key elements are the reinforcing of Namuwiki's proxy body in Korea, and the introduction of a confiscation system for profits based on the distribution of illegal information. Furthermore, Kim says that they are pushing for a system where the domestic proxy requirements are expanded from current user count and revenue to encompassing other elements such as visits and traffic, with an addition of similar expansions for minor protection.
Content
Articles
Content of Namuwiki is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Korea. Namuwiki has explained that their license is incompatible with Wikipedia and Fandom wiki on the FAQ page.Accuracy and neutrality
The phrase "turn off Namuwiki" has become a running joke in many Korean Internet communities, targeting its users who act knowledgeable about certain topics without doing in-depth and credible research outside of Namuwiki. The material found on it is written in a personal/subjective style that was characteristic of the wiki from which it was forked, the Rigveda Wiki. It has much more lax guidelines than Wikipedia, does not necessarily require references or sources, and has been criticized as being inaccurate and biased.Administration
Umanle S.R.L.'s base of operation in Paraguay has led to concerns over the legal venues available for Korean citizens to seek correction of information they consider harmful, given the bureaucratic difficulties in handling legal matters with a foreign entity under foreign law. Various hypotheses have arisen to speculate the motivation behind the wiki's transfer, the most prominent of which characterizes the move as an attempt to avoid sensitive South Korean internet laws.Not much information has been revealed about Umanle S.R.L., its employees, or its owner. Data from Paraguay's Ministry of Finance confirms its existence. Some users raised concerns that Namuwiki may be operating under a ghost company.
Kim Nak-Ho, a professor of journalism, opined that relying on opaque administration may be problematic for online communities. He further added that collaborative encyclopedia projects should be owned by a formal non-profit with transparent funding.
Reception, influence, and comparison to similar services
Namuwiki, according to SimilarWeb, is the 5th most visited website on the South Korean internet as of October 5, 2024, behind only the likes of Google, Naver, YouTube, and Daum. In addition, it is the wiki website most widely used by the Korean population. It was the second most searched entity in 2015 Korea, according to Google Korea. Even though it has been criticized for lack of citations, inaccuracy, and bias, it is easy to read and editing policies have established its status as the go-to wiki website among the Korean population, which has boosted the website's status and influence into a staple of everyday Koreans' lives and pop culture. According to The Hankyoreh's October 30, 2024 article of Namuwiki, it has 7.2 times more traffic compared to the Korean Wikipedia. Similarweb ranks Namuwiki as the fifth most visited website in South Korea. According to The Korea Economic Daily, Namuwiki had a maximum daily user count of 2 million, and a maximum daily pageview count of 45 million in 2021, making it the seventh most visited website in Korea that year.In entertainment and politics, Namuwiki makes sporadic appearances in the scene, where sometimes you can see Korean public figures, entertainers, and politicians reading Namuwiki's criticism section of their own articles, which is like a politician spinoff of "reading mean comments". According to the E-daily, public figures reading, reviewing, and editing their own NamuWiki articles have been an increasing trend on Korean YouTube. Examples. In 2019, some NamuWiki users showed concern on Namuwiki's questions board over the fact that articles collectively edited by the viewers of the videos above might count as Outside interference and as a violation of NamuWiki's rules, but the act was given the greenlight by one of NamuWiki's administrators, stating that unless vandalism happens they should be treated as simple edits. NamuWiki has also come under pressure from various politicians and political organizations for many reasons, and various efforts were either made or theorized against NamuWiki. Critics of these acts argue that the blocking or taking-down of NamuWiki would be unnecessary censorship and the hindrance of freedom of speech.
Due to NamuWiki's growing influence, more politicians are increasingly paying attention to their NamuWiki pages; According to the JoongAng's call with the aids of the PPP's first-term MP's office,, it is said that the PPP has separate designated assistants just for Namuwiki management.
In March 2017, an article published by the Korean news outlet MK News detailed Namuwiki and the "humorous" writing style of its articles. The article attributed Namuwiki's growth to its accessibility and humor. However, this and its ease of editing also leads to articles with biased and unfounded opinions. In November 2018, Namuwiki was mentioned by Korean news outlet representative Junghwan Lee as a positive example for news outlets to follow in the context of fake news, explaining that information contributed online from repeated discussion, deletion, and adjustments ultimately creates truthful information.
Media institutions, even legacy media with high awareness to the Korean public, can sometimes be seen uploading images from Namuwiki, in their own articles. Examples.