An ambulance carrying the body of South Korean actress Choi Jin-sil leaves her home for a hospital as surrounded by media and police officers in Seoul. Web Rumors Tied to Korean Actress’s Suicide SEOUL, South Korea — One of South Korea’s most famous actresses was found dead in her home on Thursday in what the police called a suicide. They linked her death to malicious online rumors, a growing social problem in South Korea, which has one of the world’s most active online communities and one of its highest suicide rates. The body of the actress, Choi Jin-sil, 39, was found in the bathroom of her apartment with a rope made out of bandages around her neck, Yang Jae-ho, a senior police investigator, said at a news conference. Already struggling with a messy divorce, she had been deeply troubled by online accusations that she had driven another actor to gas himself in his car a month earlier, Mr. Yang said. The actor, Ahn Jae-hwan, was struggling with debt, and the rumors said she had pressed him relentlessly to repay money she had lent. She complained to the police about the rumors, which she called baseless, and they were investigating when she died. The night before, Mr. Yang said, she came home drunk and broke down before her mother, crying and bitterly protesting the Internet rumors. Then Ms. Choi sent cellphone text messages to her makeup assistant, asking her to look after her two children, Mr. Yang said. Almost 80 percent of South Korea’s households have broadband access, fostering active online interactions. Most Web sites here have bulletin boards where users can post uncensored, anonymous comments, and nearly all young people run their own blogs, updating via cellphone. Such sites were a major avenue for rumors about the possible dangers of dropping a ban on American beef that fed enormous street protests and political upheaval earlier this year. Major Web portals have in recent years doubled the number of monitors to screen out online character assassination and respond more quickly to complaints of malicious rumors. But many victims still complained that vicious rumors spread so fast their reputations were ruined virtually overnight. When two young female celebrities killed themselves last year, at least one of them, the singer Yoo Na, was found to have suffered from malicious online rumors saying she had had plastic surgery. Source: NY Times
