Jeon Yong-gi "Malicious Comments Should Be Punished at the Level of Assisting Suicide" Proposed Amendment to the Telecommunications Network Act

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Wondara] Jeon Yong-gi, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, has proposed a bill that would punish malicious comment writers with imprisonment of up to 10 years, equivalent to the crime of assisting suicide under criminal law.

On the 9th, Representative Jeon announced that he had proposed a partial amendment to the Information and Communications Network Act reflecting this content.

This amendment establishes a new crime for insults such as hateful and discriminatory expressions online, and stipulates that those who cause victims to make or resolve to make an extreme choice through comments shall be punished with imprisonment from 1 year to 10 years, similar to the crime of assisting suicide under criminal law.

Under the current law, defamation is punishable by imprisonment of 3 to 7 years or a fine of 30 million to 50 million won depending on whether the statement is true or false. For the crime of insult, the penalty is imprisonment or detention of up to 1 year or a fine of up to 2 million won.

Representative Jin said, "Malicious comments that cause extreme choices are tantamount to assisting suicide," and explained, "This issue should be severely punished at the same level as the crime of assisting suicide under criminal law."

The list of co-sponsors of this bill includes 13 members: Kwon Chil-seung, Park Yong-jin, Seo Sam-seok, Song Gap-seok, Shin Dong-geun, Shin Jeong-hoon, Ahn Ho-young, Oh Young-hwan, Lee Jang-seop, Jang Kyung-tae, and Hong Ik-pyo from the Democratic Party, and independent member Yang Jeong-sook.

Earlier, Representative Jeon also urged for solutions to malicious comments in the sports section during a meeting with Naver officials. Naver and Kakao announced on the 7th that they would suspend the comment function on sports news articles in August.