온라인상의 가짜뉴스와 법적제재에 관한 이론적 연구

Abstract

Fake news (i.e. falsely manipulated information) soar in general when social issues are aroused. For example, in 2017 when the Constitutional Court of Korea proceeded to take the legal procedures for the impeachment of the former South Korean president, Park Geun-Hye, a lot of fake news to undermine the credibility of the trial were said to be widespread. Such credibility underpins the rigorous judgement and adjudication, and the procedural legitimacy and rationality are as important as the results. Therefore such massively circulated fake news were a serious problem that can compromise the credibility of the trial. Once they are produced, they spread very fast and widely over a number of communication channels including SNS, etc. The problem is that they damage the honor of an individual and taint his (or her) reputation, both of which cannot be easily recovered. So in case where the widespread fake news compromise the honor of an individual and instigate the social disputes, the appropriate action must be taken to stop them. But in reality, there are not many remedial actions we can take to undo such undesirable consequences. So this paper proposes the theoretical basis to immediately contain the circulation of fake news. In doing so, the proposed basis in this paper is wanted to serve as a reference in case where our government or the National Assembly needs to find or to build a legal foundation on this issue. This study aims to enhance and to develop the previous paper called ‘A study on the legal sanction against fake news on oneline which is written by Hae-ung Kim and is published on the Journal of The Korea Society of Information Technology Policy & Management (ITPM), Vol. 6, No. 11, 2017, whose overall contents are referenced, and some of which are reorganized.