A man holds a laptop as cyber code is projected on him in this graphic from May 13, 2017.REUTERS/YONHAP
A revised law meant to curb disinformation online took effect on Tuesday, and some of the country's most active internet users are already eyeing the exits — vowing to move to Reddit, to overseas servers, to anywhere they believe the new rules cannot follow.
The threat to relocate, at least online, even has a name online: "declarations of digital asylum." Driving it is the revised Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, dubbed the July 7 law for the date it took effect, which lets courts impose punitive damages of up to five times the harm caused by spreading "false and manipulated information" online.
Many users fear that the amendment will sharply narrow what they can say, and some warn that unless the foreseeable side effects are fixed, the anxiety could give way to an outright exodus to foreign platforms or a wave of lawsuits.
The unease runs deep. A JoongAng Ilbo analysis of 10,057 posts and comments on Korea's three largest online communities by monthly active users — DC Inside, FM Korea and Ruliweb — found that 6,354 of them, or 63.2 percent, expressed concerns about the law. The analysis used the AI agent Claude to scrape posts that mentioned the amendment between Dec. 24 last year, the day it cleared the National Assembly, and July 2 this year.
Narrowed to the 2,769 that were original posts rather than comments, the share of apparent dissent climbed to 80.4 percent. Just 1.1 percent, or 109 posts, were supportive, with most arguing that people who spread falsehoods should be punished harshly to set an example. The remaining 35.7 percent were neutral.
Some users are going well beyond complaining, with proposed responses led by political action — petitions, signature drives or street rallies — at 351 posts. Another 121 talked of moving to overseas platforms such as Reddit, and 57 discussed using virtual private networks (VPN) to keep from being traced.
On FM Korea, some predicted the law would simply push activity underground.
"Once the July 7 law kicks in, a third community will rise," one user wrote. "People may get in through a VPN, the way they do with illegal sites, or a community with servers based overseas could spring up and thrive."
The Reddit app icon is seen on a smartphone in this graphic from July 13, 2021REUTERS/YONHAP
Some posts said the writers were leaving for Reddit to dodge the law, or giving up online forums altogether.
Others framed the law as a provocation that would backfire.
"If the 'Network Act' shuts people up like this, Koreans won't stand for it, and it'll burst out somewhere," another user wrote. "Resentment toward President Lee Jae Myung will only grow, and the rallies will only get bigger."
One post vowed to file a constitutional complaint.
A recurring grievance was that the law goes after the wrong forums, as platforms that use servers overseas are difficult for the Korean government to regulate.
"They can't block a single hate comment on foreign platforms like Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, and yet they regulate only the tight-knit domestic communities," one Ruliweb user wrote.
Some communities have even circulated a kind of how-to guide for staying out of trouble: Drop outright assertions and instead express everything as an implication.
The potential flight of platform users may well mirror the fallout from earlier efforts to police online speech, according to experts.
"Online users found ways around it even when the real-name verification system was in place," Prof. Oh Se-wook, a media and communications professor at Sunmoon University, said. "Everyone wants a space to speak their mind, so once you start ruling on what is false and what is not, it's only natural to leave for somewhere without those limits."
Korea has been here before. A 2007 amendment to the same communications law required websites averaging more than 100,000 visitors a day to confirm the identity of anyone leaving a comment, usually through their resident registration number. The rule, meant to curb malicious comments blamed for a series of celebrity suicides, covered nearly 150 of the country's most-visited sites. The Constitutional Court struck it down in 2012, ruling unanimously that it violated free speech. The judges found no clear sign it had reduced illegal or abusive posts and said it had merely driven users to overseas services beyond its reach.
Under the amended law, whether a piece of online content is false or manipulated is decided by private "fact-checking organizations" that receive administrative and financial support through a Transparency Center under the Korea Media and Communications Commission.
That structure sits at the heart of the anxiety. The deeper fear is that a basic right, the freedom of expression, is under threat. Of the 6,354 negative posts, the analysis examined 3,096 in detail, excluding those that were only profanity or venting. Censorship or an infringement of free expression was the dominant worry, which appeared in 46.6 percent of the posts, with many fearing that everyday satire or political criticism could become grounds for punishment.
An amendment to the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection passes in the National Assembly on Dec. 24, 2025.YONHAP
On DC Inside and elsewhere, it was not hard to find posts branding the amended law a "gag law" or a "censorship law."
Another 17.5 percent worried the law would be turned against critics of the government or political rivals. Posts warned that any administration could wield it to "deal with" groups it disliked, and one declared that the country had "already slid into dictatorship" under censorship law. Comparisons with other countries accounted for 11.9 percent, with several pointing to a U.S. statement against censorship. The risk of arbitrary punishment drew 4.8 percent, with one post warning that penalties could be exploited to pad police performance evaluations.
The harder problem, in Prof. Oh's view, is where the line is drawn.
"Deciding how far freedom of expression extends on online platforms is extremely difficult," he said. "Most illegal content is already blocked under existing measures, so adding more regulation makes side effects unavoidable."
Yu Hong-sik, a media and communication professor at Chung-Ang University, took a similar view of the trade-off.
"Trying to stop disinformation is necessary," Prof. Yu said, "but it's regrettable that this came about through legislative force rather than through citizens freely voicing their opinions."
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
