Do Korean bloggers have free speech??

They are cracked down on, or any of reasonable size (all naver, cyworld, etc). Lee Myung Bak has a very large number of people he pays small money to in order to check what's going on and reply appropriately to internet media. Although it is officially illegal to do this in Korea, he is by no means the only one that does it. Many of the stars do this also in order to bolster their image, fight against bad rumours (which are usually true) and even attack other actors / actresses.

The thing you have to understand about in Korea is that everyone has a national ID number that is used for absolutely everything. I believe the last remaining website in which you didn't need this number to make an ID was yahoo.co.kr, but that is no longer the case. Most places in order to even reply to topics you need to use your number (100% of the time), address, confirmed phone number (occasionally) etc. Therefore, whatever people say on the internet allows them to be tracked down. I remember one ocassion a girl wrote something about what really happened to Roh Moo Hyun on cyworld.com , the information was deleted almost minutes later and she received a direct message from cyworld asking her not to post such information.

Anyway, it goes on and on, but in order to answer your question, yes, bloggers are in exactly the same boat. I have heard rumours of the Korean public forming a group to raise capital in order to take Lee Myung Bak on in court but the government is blocking it. Things are getting a little crazy now that Lee Myung Bak is trying to have a movement passed quickly in parliament that 'would allow the government to have control over what any media company publishes in Korea'. Wouldn't that be just great ....

Here is a link to a paper containing information about what I mentioned last. I'll have to look later for some English report on it, they are very very hard to find due to what is fed out from Korea to the world.

http://www.alacrastore.com/storecontent/oxford/DB151207

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/business/worldbusiness/21seoul.html?_r=1 <-- LMB cleared by 'special prosecutor' and interviewed inside a restaurant!!!

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_385304.html Notice "Critics said state prosecutors turned the Roh investigation into a national circus by leaking details to the media about humiliating allegations before they had secured evidence." This is what LMB was doing to bring him down, they didn't have any evidence and look at how all of the English reporting media companies are still focusing on the $6million.