The cyber defamation law that the Korean government pursues allows police to crack down on hateful comments without any reports from victims. The only country where such cyber defamation law is being implemented is China. South Korea is the first democratic country in the process of introducing the law. The Korea Communications Commission, South Korea's telecommunications and broadcasting regulator, has been considering revising the current Telecommunications Law and put more regulations and deeper scrutiny on major Internet portals.
Controversies
There have been talks about introducing the stricter laws in cyberspace. A famous celebrity's suicide in South Korea, triggered the controversies once again as to whether such law is necessary. The law supported by the governing Grand National Party, if implemented, will allow police to investigate the cyber defamation cases without any complaints of the victims. The oppositionDemocratic Party has been against the introduction of such law.
Advocate views
The current laws have failed to prevent the number of the victims from increasing at an escalating rate.
Because information and rumors can travel in a matter of seconds across the Internet, cyber-bullying and cyber defamation could take a significant toll on each victim without such strict regulations by authorities.
Opposing views
There are already ways to regulate the cyberspace with the current laws.
It is potentially possible for the law to be exploited by authorities in an attempt to crack down on people who express opposite views.
"Defamation" is too ambiguous to be defined by a third party, other than the victims.
Survey
A Research & Research survey of 800 Korean people conducted on Jan. 14, 2009 showed that 60% supported the GNP-led bill dealing with cyber defamation, and 32.1% opposed it.
Vast majority of cyber defamation police reports arise from online games. League of Legends is a game which is notorious for such acts. In 2015 alone, South Korean law enforcement received and investigated over 8000 reports of cyber defamation; over half of these cases involve League of Legends where players head to police stations as a retaliation after being verbally abused by teammates or opponents. There are even 'settlement fee hunters', where players enter games and grief with intention of being insulted by other players. In some cases, such settlement fee hunters file police reports against over 50 other individuals at once. Most of the victims of settlement fee hunters are teenagers, since many parents are willing to pay settlement fees ranging from 300 thousand to 2 million KRW to avoid their children having to go to trial and risk gaining criminal records.
