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SEOUL, South Korea - Kim Hyo-bi doesn't want her picture taken any more. Not after the 22-year-old student's portrait wound up on a photo-sharing Web site last summer with her face colored and distorted to make her look silly, titled alongside the original as "Before and After."
She tried to simply forget about it, but she couldn't. She was barraged with calls from friends who saw the page, and the humiliation and feeling of being violated caused her several sleepless nights.
"I always thought that it is something (that) only could happen to other people," Kim said.
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Victims of cyberviolence can suffer from insomnia along with anger and feelings of insecurity, said psychiatrist Kim Jin-se, who has treated patients with the issue. Soothing them isn't easy, Kim said, because the problem causing their troubles, the Internet, has become an indispensable part of daily life.
He suggested those who are targeted try to ignore the abuse or simply stay offline for a while.
Kim, the student whose picture was altered, said she felt she couldn't go to police with her complaints because she feared it might actually have been posted by a friend. She said she never put the photo on the Web and doesn't know how it got there.
She now warns friends not to use her photo on the Web and remains keenly aware of any cameras around her. In South Korea, of course, cameras are essentially everywhere, since most mobile phones have them.
On a recent shopping trip, Kim was startled by the sound of camera shutters and the sight of flashes.
"Unfortunately," she said, "it still irritates me."
