The government of South Korea revealed on Sunday that leftist President Lee Jae-myung had proposed at a recent cabinet meeting a massive initiative to silence alleged “fake news” on YouTube.
Lee complained that content creators on the Google-owned outlet were profiting from the spread of false information and claimed the South Korean government had a responsibility to “fundamentally prevent” the spread of alleged “fake news.” The comments originated from the minutes of a cabinet meeting held on June 19 and published on Sunday.
Some reports relaying the details of the meeting indicated that Lee was interested in imposing “punitive damages” on individuals who use YouTube to spread what the leftist government deems “fake news.”
The initiative followed multiple bills drafted by the left in the Korean National Assembly in June seeking to silence alleged “hate speech” and “disinformation.” While the proposals would potentially create free speech implications for Korean citizens, most reports do not indicate that the leftist Democratic Party has emphasized the importance of free speech in its proposals to silence content online it deems inaccurate.
Lee Jae-myung, the longtime leader of the Democratic Party, assumed the presidency of the country after winning a special election on June 3 prompted by his conservative predecessor, Yoon Suk-yeol, attempting and failing to impose martial law on the country in December. The chaotic impeachment process that followed gave South Korea five presidents in six months and significantly hurt the country’s foreign policy efforts as foreign governments on occasion were not updated quickly enough that a new president was in power.
Lee and his Democrats repeatedly argued in the aftermath of the Yoon scandal that conservative commentators on YouTube were spreading “fake news” and hurting the country. Yoon and his supporters, however, also condemned the left for allegedly weaponizing YouTube to spread disinformation against the right. Lee himself benefitted handsomely from YouTube’s live broadcast feature in December when he filmed himself, then a lawmaker in the National Assembly, climbing over military barricades to vote against Yoon’s martial law decree.
Despite this, Lee reportedly described online platforms during the recent cabinet meeting as dangerous for the stability of the country.
“There are too many instances where fake news is used to earn money,” Lee reportedly stated, according to the Yonhap News Agency. “Resorting to illegal actions to earn money should be fundamentally prevented.”
Yonhap described Lee as ordering “measures to fundamentally prevent the spread of fake news through online platforms, like YouTube.”
The cabinet meeting occurred shortly after the Democratic Party presented multiple initiatives in the National Assembly, some shortly before Lee took office, to curtail free speech on the internet. The Korea Times described in June two different bills imposing restrictions on what can be said online — one targeting “discriminatory” language against “certain individuals or groups and another targeting “false” information, not merely offensive speech. The anti-discrimination bill, a group of leftist lawmakers proposing the bill explained at the time, was intended to “contribute to the establishment of a healthy internet culture by criminalizing information that justifies, promotes or reinforces discrimination.” Among the proposed protected categories were “race, nationality, ethnicity, region, age, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion, occupation, or disease.”
Democratic Party lawmakers proposing the anti-“disinformation” bill claimed that censorship was necessary in the face of an alleged “sharp rise in the number of cases of people creating and disseminating false and manipulated information.”
The Korea Times noted that the bill against discrimination may be particularly problematic for Lee as the president faced a controversy during his presidential run involving his son, who was accused of publishing misogynistic content online. Lee Dong-ho faced a $3,600 fine in October associated with both alleged publication of “obscene” content and illegal gambling. Then-Assemblyman Lee admitted to his son’s statements and told the public, “It’s my fault for not raising him properly,” but denied that the offensive comments in question were “sexual.”
The comments surfaced during a presidential debate in May as third-party candidate Lee Jun-seok used them as an example of discrimination against women.
“If someone says they want to stick chopsticks in women’s genitals or some spot like that, is that misogyny?” candidate Lee asked, paraphrasing Lee Jae-myung’s son.
South Korean politicians present the issue of “fake news” as separate from that of obscene content. YouTube has become a particular point of concern for both the left and the right as a significant percentage of the country — about half, according to some polls — use YouTube as a source for news. Left-wing media outlets claim that the problem is “hyperactive” right-wing YouTubers, while conservative outlets lament that the Korean left also used the platform to its benefit.
“YouTube’s position in Korea is further complicated by its apparent immunity from domestic regulations,” the conservative newspaper Chosun Ilbo observed in February 2024. “Local companies such as Kakao and Naver are subject to rules by the Korea Communications Commission and the Fair Trade Commission and frequently face public scrutiny during parliamentary audits. YouTube, on the other hand, operates in a realm largely untouched by both formal and informal regulations.”
Yoon Suk-yeol regularly accused the Democrats of spreading “fake news” to cause chaos in the country, especially in the aftermath of the martial law declaration.
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