President Lee Jae Myung has instructed the government to draw up measures to fundamentally prevent the spread of fake news through online platforms, like YouTube, minutes from a Cabinet meeting held in June showed Sunday.
"There are too many instances where fake news is used to earn money," Lee was quoted as saying in the minutes from the June 19 meeting disclosed by the interior ministry. "Resorting to illegal actions to earn money should be fundamentally prevented."
Lee suggested imposing punitive measures, such as exemplary damages, on such YouTubers, urging the justice ministry to review relevant measures.
During the meeting, Lee asked then Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul about whether the Vietnamese people request an apology from South Korea, in an apparent reference to the massacre of civilians by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War.
He then said South Korea should do its best in its ties with Vietnam and ordered the government to review measures, such as accepting more foreign workers from the Southeast Asian country, as part of humanitarian efforts.
Lee also called on the land ministry to reform the public housing system to prevent property price hikes and retrieve returns from such housing projects to the public sector, according to the minutes. (Yonhap)
