AnalysisKorea's 'fake news' law set to redraw online speech rules

Korea Times graphic by Cho Sang-won

A viral YouTube video, a one-star review on a delivery app, a heated post on a parenting community — all of these will fall under the same legal standard starting July 7.

Korea's revised Information and Communications Network Act, widely known as the "fake news" law, introduces punitive damages for YouTubers with more than 100,000 subscribers and high-traffic TikTok accounts if they display what authorities define as "unlawful" content, while platforms such as Naver, Kakao, Google and Meta stand to face steep penalties if they fail to police such content.

High-traffic influencers targeted

The enforcement decree spells out who can be sued for punitive damages over illegal and fabricated information. Individuals on online platforms like YouTube or TikTok who have posted at least three pieces of content over the past three months and either have more than 100,000 subscribers or average more than 100,000 monthly views in that period will fall under the definition of major online information producers.

If they are found to have deliberately spread false information that causes harm in order to obtain an unfair advantage, judges can impose damages of up to five times the proven loss. What can be considered an unfair advantage encompasses not just economic gains, but also intangible benefits such as expanding social or political influence.

Meanwhile, platforms with more than 1 million daily active users on average over the last three months are required to operate reporting and monitoring systems. Once a complaint is received, they must verify it through the new transparency center under the state-run Korea Media and Communications Commission.

Any platform that fails to delete content that has already been confirmed as unlawful faces corporate administrative surcharges. Should it refuse to obey formal government corrective orders to take down such content, its CEO can be personally held liable and prosecuted.

The scope extends beyond YouTube videos and social media posts. Malicious reviews and defamatory posts on parenting communities, delivery apps and online shopping platforms are subject to the same standard.

Korea Times graphic by Cho Sang-won

Platforms scrambling to adapt

Major platforms are already scrambling to align their systems with the new regime, but say the law asks them to do something they are not designed to do: decide what is true.

“We are tightening our rules to match the new law,” a Naver representative told The Korea Times. “We will get guidelines through the Korea Internet Self-Governance Organization (KISO). If a case feels ambiguous, we’ll have to send it back to KISO again for review. I think we’re going to have to go through that kind of process quite a lot in the early stages.”

Kakao, the operator of Korea’s most popular messaging app KakaoTalk, has taken a similar stance, according to a source familiar with the situation. Due to the limits of its system for determining what is true and factual, Kakao “cannot realistically investigate the hidden motives behind each post or determine complex legal facts on its own, so it plans instead to request reviews from KISO and actively comply with the organization’s deliberation results,” the source said.

Meta, a global company that operates popular platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, is also preparing for the new law, a source familiar with the matter said without elaborating.

A public relations agency representing Google Korea, a tech giant behind the search engine and YouTube, said it has not received guidance from the headquarters yet.

U.S. President Donald Trump sits in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday (local time). Experts say Korea's "fake news" law carries diplomatic risks with the United States as it could affect American platforms. EPA-Yonhap

Potential friction with US

The “fake news” law also carries diplomatic implications. The United States has recently taken issue with the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), viewing it as an excessive restriction on free speech, and observers expect Washington to scrutinize Korea’s approach as well, given that American firms are among the most prominent platforms affected.

Experts say the law stems from domestic anxiety over misinformation rather than any desire to single out U.S. firms. But they also admit that Korea-only rules placing heavy burdens on a few U.S. tech giants could easily be recast as trade disputes or used as leverage in alliance politics, as has already occurred in Europe.

A media scholar, speaking on condition of anonymity, likened Korea’s approach to Europe’s DSA, which defines very large platforms and imposes extensive obligations on them, many of which fall on U.S. firms.

“The numeric thresholds we are now seeing for users and uploaders basically imitate it,” she said. “Europe has already faced criticism that this was about targeting American companies, and Korea risks inviting similar accusations.”

An industry expert, requesting anonymity, voiced a similar concern from the corporate side, saying the law “can easily become a spark for trade disputes,” and pointing to the recent controversy over U.S.-incorporated firm Coupang as an example of how regulatory issues can spill over into the broader Seoul-Washington relationship.

Critics warn of censorship ecosystem

Conservative politicians and activists have condemned the law as a direct threat to freedom of expression and a step toward systemic censorship.

A petition on the National Assembly website calling for the repeal of the law gathered more than 140,000 signatures between May 26 and June 26.

Because the same liability rules apply to everything from viral YouTube videos to parenting forum posts, delivery app reviews and comments on shopping platforms, critics say the law will change how platforms behave toward disputed content. Faced with the legal risk, operators may decide it is safer to take down a contested review or post as soon as a conflict arises than to keep it up and risk being punished later, raising fears that disputed content could be removed much faster and more often than before.

Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon, former justice minister, warned that once the state is empowered to decide what counts as fact, online platforms will be pushed to filter out any information that does not fit its narrative.

“Put simply, the law tells portals and community operators to prescreen and remove any posts the government deems illegal, and to punish them if they do not comply. Faced with that risk, operators will try to minimize their own liability by erring on the side of deleting more content than necessary, leading to confusion and harmful effects from censorship,” he said in a social media post.

Rep. Kim Jae-sub of the main opposition People Power Party went further, likening the law to historic speech-control statutes under authoritarian regimes.

“Hitler had the Heimtuckegesetz, a law against malicious criticism, and Stalin had Article 58 of the Soviet criminal code banning anti-Soviet agitation,” he said. “Now the Lee Jae Myung administration has revised the Information and Communications Network Act, a ‘community censorship law’ that serves the same purpose: to shut down legitimate criticism of those in power.”

He cited past cases in which Lee and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea branded investigations into the Daejang-dong development scandal in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, and a controversial trip by former Seoul mayoral candidate Chong Won-o as “fake news,” only for those allegations to later be confirmed as true.

“Just imagine how convenient a governing tool this ‘community censorship law’ will be,” he added.