[The Editors' Verdict] Problems with the Portal News Algorithm Disclosure Law

There has recently been controversy in the political sphere over legally mandating the disclosure of algorithms used by portal news services. Politicians tend to view portal news services through the lens of progressive versus conservative or ideological perspectives, suspecting that current portal news services are biased toward one side and therefore should be legally regulated. Setting aside the problem of viewing portal news services from an ideological standpoint, it is necessary to examine the issues involved in legally mandating the disclosure of portal news service algorithms.

The regulatory approach mainly discussed in the political arena involves requiring internet news service providers to disclose their basic policies for article arrangement, specific criteria for arranging articles, and the person responsible for article arrangement. It also proposes establishing a committee, such as a News Portal User Committee, under a government agency to handle the disclosure, verification, and correction requests related to internet news service policies and article arrangement criteria. The problems with such legal regulatory measures are as follows.

First, aside from the issue of partisanship in the composition of government agency committees, allowing government agencies to actively intervene in the media distribution market raises concerns about the direct exercise of state authority over the press, which could ultimately be interpreted as state censorship of the media. Such an approach is highly taboo in democratic constitutional states where freedom of the press is guaranteed as a fundamental constitutional right.

Second, there is an inherent contradiction in including internet news services as "media" while regulating them on the grounds of ensuring their publicness, fairness, and transparency. If internet news services are considered media, then naturally their freedom and independence must be guaranteed, and the core of press freedom and independence is the autonomous exercise of editorial rights. However, if government agencies can intervene in internet news service providers' news service policies, article arrangement criteria, and algorithms, and make correction demands, this infringes upon the freedom of the press of internet news service providers.

Third, the concept of media "fairness" is very abstract and relative, making it impossible to achieve through legal enforcement. Moreover, legal regulations aimed at ensuring fairness may only cause further disputes over bias and unintended side effects. For example, mandating that all media outlets' articles be arranged with equal weight or excluding algorithms that reflect user preferences as a means to ensure fairness cannot guarantee fairness. Instead, such quantitative and mechanical balancing could be seen as unjust state intervention that ignores user choice and competition in the free marketplace of ideas.

Fourth, the values of publicness and fairness in the media have traditionally applied to broadcasting media, which use the scarce public resource of radio waves. However, the characteristics of the internet as a medium protected by freedom of expression include openness, interactivity, decentralization, ease of access including low user costs, and diversity of information. These characteristics are essential and make the internet the medium closest to a free marketplace of ideas. Therefore, regulating internet-based media in the same or similar manner as broadcasting media can constitute excessive regulation that ignores the media-specific characteristics of the internet in relation to freedom of expression.

If all issues surrounding the internet are viewed through an ideological lens, the essence of services based on the internet can be distorted, and ultimately, the design and operation of a reasonable regulatory system for the internet will become difficult. The political sphere needs to keep this in mind.

Seonggi Hwang, Professor, Hanyang University School of Law