A wave of conspiracy theories that the government will censor free speech spread across online communities ahead of Tuesday's implementation of the revised online content law.
An analysis of 10,057 posts mentioning the so-called July 7 act — amendment to the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection — on online communities DC Inside, FM Korea and Ruliweb found that 590 posts, or 5.8 percent, contained false conspiracy claims about the law. The amendment is nicknamed the July 7 act after its effective date, and was pushed through by the ruling Democratic Party.
JoongAng Ilbo used the AI model Claude to scrape and analyze posts from the three largest online communities by monthly active users. The dataset included posts published between Dec. 24 last year, when the revised law passed the National Assembly, and Thursday.
The amendment introduces punitive damages for those who distributes false or manipulated information online intentionally or for unjust financial gains. It also requires online communities with more than 1 million daily users to remove or block flagged content and prevent its further distribution.
The most common conspiracy theory, accounting for 206 posts, or 35 percent, claimed that the law was influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.
“There is an identical law in China,” one internet user wrote. “The ruling party, Chinese nationals and ethnic Chinese will not be punished from under the law.”
...
Imagine receiving a WhatsApp message saying the government is now monitoring your calls, reading your private messages, and can even take legal action based on what you send. Sounds alarming, righ...