The online information site Namuwiki experienced connectivity issues for about an hour on the morning of the 18th before returning to normal.
From around 9:10 a.m. that day, when accessing Namuwiki, error messages such as '502 Bad Gateway' and '504 Gateway Timeout' appeared. These error messages occur when an intermediary server acting as a gateway does not receive a proper response from the final server. This connectivity issue was normalized around 10:10 a.m. that day.
Regarding this, a representative from the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) noted, "The connectivity errors and delays experienced on Namuwiki that morning are unrelated to the KCSC," adding, "While the KCSC has considered blocking Namuwiki, it was addressed in terms of content review, not system issues." They continued, "The connectivity errors are presumed to have occurred due to system issues, but identifying the cause is difficult because it is a foreign corporation."
Namuwiki is operated by 'Umanle' (umanle. S.R.L.), which is based in Paraguay. Anyone can create or edit documents and upload information simply by signing up.
Meanwhile, the People Power Party has argued since last year that it is necessary to block access to certain pages on Namuwiki due to the distribution of private information. The Media Special Committee of the People Power Party said in a statement last November, "Namuwiki provides services only in Korea, yet selectively complies with the KCSC's corrective requests, dragging its feet while earning an annual net income of over 10 billion won." They added, "As Namuwiki is making significant revenue in the country, it should fulfill its obligations as a responsible corporation. If it refuses, strong measures should be considered, such as blocking access to Namuwiki domestically, exercising sovereignty like France and other countries.
The KCSC decided at a meeting of the Communication Deliberation Subcommittee last October that influencers cannot easily be considered public figures and voted to block access to personal information of influencers posted on Namuwiki. Subsequently, influencer A requested the deletion of images of their ex-partner and personal contact, which the poster voluntarily removed. Personal and portrait rights infringement information regarding influencer B's family information was deleted by Namuwiki.
At that time, a representative from the KCSC stated, "Since it is a site located overseas, we cannot make individual deletion blocking requests," and added, "If we continue to make decisions and warnings like this without corrective actions, we may also consider blocking access to all of Namuwiki based on cumulative cases."