Broadcaster Kim Ou-joon. [Yonhap]
Broadcaster Kim Ou-joon. [Yonhap]

Broadcaster Kim Ou-joon, a prominent pro-government commentator, has become the first person sanctioned under the so-called "fake news punishment law."

The action followed a court ruling finding Kim guilty of spreading false information.

YouTube blocked content from Kim's channel on Tuesday after a complaint was filed on July 7 — the first day the revised Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, widely known as the "fake news punishment law," took effect, according to IT industry sources Wednesday.

The complainant was Lee Dong-jae, a contributing editor at the Maeil Business Newspaper and former Channel A reporter, who requested that YouTube remove the videos and suspend the account, alleging that certain clips from Kim's show "Kim Ou-joon's Dassbwida" spread false information about him and damaged his reputation.

YouTube's legal support team notified Lee that it had "reviewed the report of legal violations and blocked the problematic content from being viewed on the relevant country's domain."

The videos now display a notice reading: "This content is unavailable in this country's domain due to a defamation report."

YouTube took the action after a court found Kim guilty of defamation following the revised law's entry into force.

Under the revised IT Network Act, online platforms above a certain size — including YouTube — must fulfill self-regulatory obligations, including establishing systems for reporting and handling false and manipulated information and setting operational policies.

Platforms may take measures to prevent the spread of false or manipulated information — including deletion, blocking or account suspension — when they determine that a large-scale service provider has violated its own self-regulatory policies.

If a poster on a platform above a certain traffic threshold intentionally distributes illegal or false information and causes harm, they may be held liable for damages of up to five times the actual loss. A poster who repeatedly distributes information a court has confirmed to be illegal or false can also face a fine of up to 1 billion won ($678,000).

Kim was sentenced to a fine of 20 million won on July 14 in the defamation trial brought over the Lee case. The first-instance court found that Kim had made statements on radio and YouTube on six separate occasions between April and October 2020 suggesting that Lee had pressured Lee Cheol, former head of Value Investment Korea, to falsely claim that he had given money to former Participatory Party chief Yoo Si-min — conduct the court ruled constituted defamation.


jshan@heraldcorp.com