US voices ‘significant concerns’ about new Korean regulations on digital platforms

South Korean lawmakers on the International Affairs and Unification Committee evaluate on Nov. 14, 2025, a duplicate of the joint reality sheet launched by South Korea and the US, following negotiations on tariffs and safety. (Yonhap)

The US Division of State expressed “important issues” about South Korea’s latest passage of a revision to a regulation aimed toward addressing false and fabricated info on-line.
 
After being the topic of great backlash inside South Korea, the revision of the Data and Communications Community Act now faces a brand new impediment within the type of US disapproval.
 
“The USA has important issues with the ROK authorities’s approval of an modification to the Community Act that negatively impacts the enterprise of US-based on-line platforms and undermines free expression,” a division spokesperson instructed the Hankyoreh on Wednesday in response to a request for remark. 
 
“The ROK shouldn’t impose pointless boundaries round digital companies,” the spokesperson went on to say.
 
The time period “pointless boundaries” was used verbatim within the joint reality sheet that South Korea and the US launched in November following an earlier summit. The actual fact sheet acknowledged that the 2 international locations “commit to make sure that US firms will not be discriminated in opposition to and don’t face pointless boundaries by way of legal guidelines and insurance policies regarding digital companies, together with community utilization charges and on-line platform laws.”
 
Seoul contends that there’s nothing discriminatory concerning the new laws, however the US’ interpretation of them as a “barrier” prompts issues of potential commerce frictions. 

Such issues will not be unfounded, because the US pushed again the annual assembly of a joint committee to debate the 2 international locations’ free commerce settlement that had been scheduled for Dec. 18 after the South Korean authorities moved to amend the Community Act.

“The USA opposes censorship and stays devoted to working with the ROK to advertise a free and open digital setting for all,” the State Division spokesperson continued, elevating the likelihood that the brand new laws will develop into a degree of competition between the 2 international locations.
 
The State Division warned that the modification of the Community Act may add to the wave of censorship at present sweeping throughout the globe.

“By requiring platforms to proactively censor content material to keep away from penalties, the ROK dangers abetting a worldwide development of laws that censors and threaten free expression past its borders,” it stated, urging “cautious consideration” by South Korea.
 
The spokesperson’s workplace for South Korea’s International Ministry defined that the regulation is aimed toward responding to at this time’s on-line setting.

“The aim of the act is to reply to detrimental results {that a} swiftly altering digital setting can have on society and to strengthen person safety,” the ministry stated, noting that it could be sure that the US and South Korea “intently interact with each other” on the matter. 

The brand new modification would establish a selected group of large-scale info and communication service suppliers and assign it the duty of organising insurance policies on registering disinformation experiences and establishing requirements and responses. These included within the group would additionally should submit transparency experiences to offer updates on their responses to disinformation a minimum of as soon as each six months.
 
The US believes that the modification would topic Massive Tech firms within the US, similar to Google, to extreme laws. After arguing that the European Union’s Digital Providers Act is an try at censorship concentrating on US firms, the US has lately demonstrated a hard-line response by imposing visa bans on officers concerned within the act.

By Kim Gained-chul, Washington correspondent

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