KCC Forms 'Consultative Body to Enhance Reliability and Transparency of Portal News'

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-seon] The Korea Communications Commission announced on the 24th that it will form a 'Council for Enhancing the Reliability and Transparency of Portal News' and begin its first discussions.

The council is composed of experts from related fields such as media and law, as well as relevant government departments, to discuss measures to strengthen the reliability and transparency of media platforms. The operation period is approximately six months.

News services on portals launched around the year 2000 provide articles through partnerships with news organizations, and articles are exposed to users through news subscriptions or recommendation services. Due to the convenience of easily viewing news from multiple news organizations within the portal, the portal news usage rate reached 79.2% as of last year.

While ensuring user convenience and rights, there is a growing need to establish policy measures for balanced public opinion formation. Accordingly, 'Enhancing the Reliability and Transparency of Media Platforms,' which includes accountability and reliability of article arrangement caused by news recommendation algorithms and improving the transparency of the portal's news service provision methods and procedures, has been selected as a national agenda of the new government.

To specifically implement the national agenda, the Korea Communications Commission plans to discuss transparency measures regarding the composition and operation of the News Partnership Evaluation Committee, and improvements such as algorithms that cause confirmation bias, to strengthen the transparency and fairness of news services so that portals can faithfully fulfill their original role as news intermediaries.

The Korea Communications Commission plans to prepare desirable policy measures based on expert discussions in the council for enhancing the reliability and transparency of portal news, and will also collect opinions from related industries, users, and other stakeholders for this purpose.