PLANS TO DEMAND COMPENSATION FROM MEDIA

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The ruling Democratic Party is formulating a punitive damage compensation bill for defamation to wipe out fake news. One-man media channels as well as conventional media outlets like TV and newspaper companies are to be targeted. However, the opposition camp is denouncing this plan as “the taming of the media.”

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The Democratic Party announced it is formulating a plan that allows demanding punitive damage compensation from media channels.

[Soundbite] Rep. Noh Woong-rae(Democratic Party(Leader of Media TF)) : "Media defamation causes falsely accused celebrities to take their own lives. The ultimate goal is proper damage relief."

According to the revised bill, when a person is defamed by false information, the victim may ask for punitive damage compensation of up to three times the damage amount.
The key target was initially one-person media like YouTube, but conventional media outlets were also included. The ruling party plans to legislate during this extraordinary session six items, which include a mandate that requires a correction report to be at least more than half the length of the original report. The responsibility of portal sites that circulate news is to be strengthened as well. However, lawmakers will keep reviewing this issue as sometimes trending news is determined by the portal sites’ in-house algorithms. The opposition party denounced this plan as attempts to tame the media.

[Soundbite] Kim Chong-in(People Power Party Leader(Feb. 8)) : "Although they claim to regulate fake news, they are actually trying to tame the media by forcing media channels to follow their Online reporting guidelines that ultimately serve the administration."

Some experts express concerns about excessive legislation.

[Soundbite] Prof. Ji Seong-woo(Law School, Sungkyunkwan Univ.) : "There is already a penal system for defamation and libel. I think adding punitive damage compensation to it would be akin to double jeopardy."

The Democratic Party said further discussions will take place, and emphasized freedom of speech would not be violated since the court would determine what is fake news and the extent of defamation.