Producing Fake News Across Politics, Business, and Entertainment
Broadcasting Review Board Planned Strict Measures but Content Was Self-Deleted
A YouTube channel that indiscriminately produced fake news (false manipulated information) has finally been deleted.
The channel in question is the YouTube channel ‘FuRi Creator,’ which has been identified as the source of multiple fake news stories. As of the 24th, accessing this channel redirects to another account with no content uploaded.
Until now, FuRi Creator spread fake news indiscriminately across politics, business, and entertainment. It mainly posted short videos, so-called 'Shorts,' which are easy to spread, and had over 54,000 subscribers.
Most of the content was absurd falsehoods such as ‘President Yoon Suk-yeol got angry after being hit by a Makgeolli bottle during a speech,’ ‘Former President Park Geun-hye gave 150 million won as a congratulatory gift for politician Lee Jun-seok’s wedding,’ and ‘Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong is marrying singer Hong Jin-young.’ Moreover, in most cases, the real names of famous people were exposed, raising ongoing concerns about defamation and other damages to the parties involved.
In response, the Korea Communications Standards Commission (hereafter KCSC) held a Communications Review Subcommittee meeting to start an official review of the channel and planned to take strong measures such as deletion or blocking if necessary. However, the channel was voluntarily deleted, bringing the situation to a close. It appears the channel felt pressured by the strong public criticism.
Meanwhile, on the 21st, the KCSC held a meeting chaired by the chairman and decided to switch the rapid review procedure for false manipulated content (fake news) to a ‘permanent rapid review’ starting January 1 next year.
According to the KCSC, since its establishment in 2008, there has been a regulatory basis for proposing rapid review motions, but it was not activated as a permanent rapid review system.
However, due to the recent flood of false manipulated content, the need for rapid review was raised, and as a result of establishing and operating a temporary body called the ‘Fake News Rapid Review Center’ (hereafter the Center), a permanent procedure allowing commissioners to propose rapid review motions on an ongoing basis was established.
Since the Center was established, 8,991 cases of false manipulated content have been received up to the day before, of which 8,079 cases, accounting for 90%, have been processed. This is the result within less than a month (24 days) since the rapid review procedure was established and implemented on November 27.
Among these, nine cases urgently requiring public interest handling from terrestrial broadcasters were proposed as rapid review agenda items and are scheduled to be submitted to the next meeting about a month and a half after receipt. The KCSC explained, “This contrasts with the approximately 10 months it took for general reviews.”
As a result, the processing procedure is expected to become even more streamlined than during the transitional trial operation phase of the Center. The Center, having fulfilled its role as a temporary body, will be abolished on the 31st.
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