SEOUL \u2013 South Korea began enforcing a law Tuesday that allows steep punitive damages against news outlets and social media influencers for spreading false information as journalist groups warned it could chill public discourse and invite censorship. <\/p>\n
Journalists and civil liberties groups say the vaguely worded law fails to clearly define what information it prohibits and lacks adequate safeguards for the media, warning it could potentially discourage critical reporting about government officials, politicians and large businesses. <\/p>\n
The law allows courts to award damages of up to five times the proven losses against news organizations and large social media channels, including YouTube creators, that circulate illegal, false or manipulated information to cause harm or generate profit. <\/p>\n
In addition, those who distribute information more than twice after a court has confirmed it to be false or manipulated could be fined up to 1 billion won ($656,000) by the country\u2019s media regulator. Internet companies operating large social media platforms with more than 1 million daily users are required to take measures such as removing content or suspending user accounts when they receive reports of false or fabricated information.<\/p>\n
The law was backed by President Lee Jae Myung\u2019s liberal Democratic Party and passed by the National Assembly in December<\/a> over a boycott by the conservative opposition. The liberals, who unsuccessfully sought to pass similar legislation<\/a> under previous governments, say the law is necessary to combat fake news and disinformation,<\/a> which they argue is posing a growing threat to democracy by fueling division and hate speech.<\/p>\n The Journalists Association of Korea said the mere prospect of news organizations repeatedly facing massive damage claims or legal disputes could have an \u201cunavoidable chilling effect.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEven if a law\u2019s objective is legitimate, it could erode the foundations of democracy if it\u2019s enforced in a way that discourages the media and ordinary citizens from freely criticizing and scrutinizing those in power,\u201d the group said in a statement.<\/p>\n The Seoul Foreign Correspondents\u2019 Club also expressed concern about the potential impact on the work of the media and the free flow of information.<\/p>\n Concerns about murky online discourse <\/p>\n The push for the law came as Lee expressed concern about South Korea\u2019s online discourse and information environment after then-President Yoon Suk Yeol<\/a> 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<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n Yoon, who faces other criminal cases<\/a> 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\u2019s campaign further polarized the country by injecting falsehoods into already bitter political disputes and making compromise increasingly difficult.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n But Kim Hong-yeol, a professor at Seoul\u2019s Duksung Women\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s unclear how major foreign platforms, like Google\u2019s YouTube, would comply. <\/p>\n In a statement to The Associated Press, YouTube said it strives to balance its commitment to openness with its responsibility to protect users and will \u201ccontinue to engage with relevant parties and share our longstanding investments we have in this critical work.\u201d The company did not specify how the South Korean law would affect its policies, but encouraged users to report \u201cpotentially violative content\u201d directly on YouTube or through its legal web form.<\/a><\/p>\n After the law was passed in December, U.S. Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers criticized it in a post on X, writing that the revised law endangers tech cooperation and that \u201cit\u2019s better to give victims civil remedies than give regulators invasive license for viewpoint-based censorship.\u201d <\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL \u2013 South Korea began enforcing a law Tuesday that allows steep punitive damages against news outlets and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[78,41880,31,146,41879,33,76,32],"class_list":["post-77623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-business","tag-kim-hong-yeol","tag-korea","tag-lee-jae-myung","tag-sarah-b-rogers","tag-south-korea","tag-world-news","tag-yoon-suk-yeol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}