Rep. Jeong Cheong-rae speaks on the tasks of the Media Reform Special Committee (Seoul=Yonhap News) Reporter Hwang Kwang-mo = Rep. Jeong Cheong-rae of the Democratic Party of Korea speaks at the launching ceremony and the first meeting of the People's Sovereignty Media Reform Special Committee held at the National Assembly on the 14th. 2025.8.14 hkmpooh@yna.co.kr

(Seoul=Yonhap News) Reporter Ahn Jeong-hoon = The Democratic Party of Korea's People's Sovereignty Media Reform Special Committee announced on the 18th that it has decided to make preventing the spread of false and manipulated information through comments on news portals a specific reform task for the committee.

No Jong-myeon, the committee's convenor, told reporters after the committee meeting on this day that this was the case.

During the meeting, committee members presented and discussed revision plans for the Media Arbitration Act and issues related to blocking false and manipulated information through YouTube.

Rep. No explained, "The Media Arbitration Act was discussed in a way that increased contentious issues compared to the bill in the 21st (National Assembly)," adding, "Issues such as which part of the burden of proof will be shifted (in cases requesting correction or retraction), how the right to claim will be restricted, and who it will be restricted against, are also contentious points."

In 2020, the Democratic Party, which was the ruling party at the time, pushed for the Media Arbitration Act, which stipulated a punitive damages system for the media, but it was scrapped due to criticism from the opposition parties calling it the 'media suppression law' and backlash from domestic and international media organizations.

He said, "Due to the nature of reporting, arguments are presented when reporting facts," and added, "Reporting fundamentally has the attribute of self-proof, so an opinion emerged (in the meeting) that it is reasonable to assign the burden of proving that the report is not false to the media when disputing falsehoods."

Countermeasures against the distribution of false and manipulated information through YouTube were also discussed as an agenda item.

Rep. No stated that measures such as establishing a permanent monitoring agency to respond and including platforms like YouTube within the scope of the existing Media Arbitration Act were discussed.

He explained, "There was a discussion about whether YouTube channels could be uniformly or partially subject to punitive damages under the Media Arbitration Act," and added, "By including them in the Media Arbitration Act, such as by viewing them as online news, we believe that actual reporting activities through YouTube can also be regulated."

The Democratic Party launched the People's Sovereignty Media Reform Special Committee on the 14th and decided to pursue the introduction of punitive damages for malicious fake news.

hug@yna.co.kr

(End)

(Copyright (c) Yonhap News, Unauthorized reproduction, redistribution, and AI learning/utilization prohibited)