How many internet users do you think consider themselves to be malicious repliers?

To find out, SK Communications conducted a survey posing the question, "Are you a malicious replier?" through Nateon, its messenger service. According to its findings, 420 out of 2,636 respondents (16%) indicated that they have posted malicious comments on websites.

According to the survey, men post malicious comments more frequently than women. While 258 out of 1281 men (20.1%) responded that they have posted malicious comments, only 12% of women (162 out of 1355) admitted having done so.

To the question of "what is a malicious comment?", 46.2% (1218) of the respondents responded, "obvious slander and contempt that everyone can easily recognize? 30.5% (804) chose "a reply that provokes discomfort"; 17.4% (459), "an intended act of malice"; and finally, 5.9% (155) said, "a reply that includes swearwords."

To the question of "why do you post a malicious comment?", 54% (227) of those who have posted malicious comments responded that they did so in order to strengthen their argument. Taking second place was, "to defend themselves against other malicious replies" at 13.8% (58). Only a small percentage of malicious repliers said they did it "for fun" or out of "mass psychology".

Furthermore, 75% (1970) of the participants said "yes" to the question of, "Do you think a policy that requires posters to use their real names could prevent malicious comments?" Among malicious repliers, however, only 30%(127) answered in the affirmative to this question. As can be seen, a greater majority of ordinary internet users consider it likely that adopting this policy will have a positive impact, while less than half of malicious repliers think so.

According to 31.2% (131) of malicious repliers, the best way to prevent malicious comments is "to respond by malicious comments." Taking second place (19.3%, 81) was the opinion that "malicious comments cannot be prevented"

According to Shin Dong-Ha, a customer service director at SK Communications, "although there evidently is a gap between the opinions of ordinary internet users and malicious repliers, the survey proves that the "real name policy' will be able to effectively decrease the number of malicious comments. Cyworld (a Korean version of Facebook), which already has adopted the real name policy, has the lowest posting rate of malicious comments vis-a-vis other portal sites that have not adopted it yet. This proves the effectiveness of the 'real name policy'."

In July, the difference of the delete rate of malicious comments among various sites was as follows: only 1.5% at Cyworld, compared to 4.7% and 4.5% at Naver and Daum respectively, which haven't adopted the 'real name policy'.