Ruling Party Seeks Anti-Cyber Abuse Law

In the wake of the shocking suicide of leading actress Choi Jin-shil, the ruling Grand National Party is moving to adopt a law named after her to punish those who spread malicious rumors online.

Party floor leader Hong Joon-pyo told The Dong-A Ilbo over the phone yesterday, “We will insert in the law on the promotion of information networks and data protection a clause on cyber defamation in this regular parliamentary session.”

Party lawmaker Na Kyung-won, who chairs the party policy committee, also told reporters, “In addition to libel law, we will introduce a cyber defamation law to allow a criminal investigation without complaints from victims.”

“We will seek revision of related laws to require Web portal sites to delete malicious replies within 24 hours without precondition if victims of the replies ask deletion. When the poster of a deleted reply files a complaint, the Korea Communications Commission will decide whether to accept it within 72 hours.”

The Korea Communications Commission will also approve a revision to the information networks law requiring Web users to confirm their identities when posting messages on sites with more than 100,000 visitors per day.

The “restrictive” identity verification system requires users to input their social security and personal ID numbers to post messages.

ditto@donga.com mungchii@donga.com