CONCERNS ABOUT MURKY ONLINE DISCOURSE
The push for the law came as Lee expressed concern about South Korea’s online discourse and information environment after then-President Yoon Suk Yeol briefly imposed martial law in 2024.
He was later impeached and removed from office. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for rebellion, a ruling that he appealed in February.
Yoon, who faces other criminal cases as well, has promoted unsubstantiated election fraud claims circulated on YouTube to defend his botched power grab and rally conservative supporters against the Democrats.
Critics say Yoon’s campaign further polarised the country by injecting falsehoods into already bitter political disputes and making compromise increasingly difficult.
The Korea Media and Communications Commission has downplayed concerns that the law could be used as a tool for state censorship.
It would be private operators of online platforms, not the government, deciding whether reported content qualifies as false or manipulated information, and the law exempts reporting conducted in the public interest from damages claims, the commission said last week.
But Kim Hong-yeol, a professor at Seoul’s Duksung Women’s University, said the law could encourage widespread self-censorship and discourage reporting or discussions on sensitive issues.
Internet companies could end up acting as online censors, adopting overly aggressive moderation policies to avoid liability and removing legitimate content in the process, Kim wrote in an article for the news website Medius.
While major South Korean internet companies like Naver and Kakao have reportedly been updating their systems for reporting and handling false information in line with guidelines from the Korea Internet Self-Governance Organization, it’s unclear how major foreign platforms, like Google’s YouTube, would comply.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
After the law was passed in December, US Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers criticised it in a post on X, writing that the revised law endangers tech cooperation and that “it’s better to give victims civil remedies than give regulators invasive license for viewpoint-based censorship.”