Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announces pan-governmental 'Media and Online Suicide Prevention Countermeasures' jointly with related ministries
Media outlets that repeatedly violate reporting standards restricted from participating in Korea Press Foundation support projects
Full transition to AI monitoring and intensive investigation by cyber investigation units into profit-driven suicide-inducing information
The government is strengthening self-regulation on media reports regarding the deaths of celebrities or whole families, which carry a high risk of imitation, and launching a 24-hour artificial intelligence (AI) monitoring and intensive investigation system for suicide-inducing information distributed online.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism officially announced the 'Pan-Governmental Promotion Measures for Suicide Prevention in Media and Online Fields', prepared jointly with related ministries through a Cabinet meeting on the 28th. The intent is to control the entire 'production-distribution-protection' process in response to the rapid surge of online suicide-inducing information, particularly centered around adolescents.
First, the government plans to strongly urge the media to refrain from reporting on incidents with concerns of copycat chain effects, such as the deaths of celebrities, adolescents, and whole families. In cooperation with media self-regulatory bodies, the number of violations of reporting standards by media outlet will be disclosed quarterly, and effective disadvantageous measures will be introduced, such as restricting media outlets with a high cumulative number of violations from participating in the Korea Press Foundation's support projects.
The police's media response system will also be reorganized. Dedicated media response guidelines will be distributed to front-line police station detective division heads in charge of case investigations, and pre-training will be made mandatory.
The online monitoring system will be fully transitioned from the existing manpower-centered method to an AI-based '24-hour monitoring center'. In particular, for acts of producing and distributing suicide-inducing information for the purpose of view counts or malicious profit, full-scale intensive investigations will be conducted through the cyber investigation units of metropolitan and provincial police agencies.
In addition, in line with the revised Information and Communications Network Act implemented on the 7th, the government plans to strengthen crackdowns on online hate/discriminatory expressions and false manipulated information, while concurrently providing digital ethics education linked to youth media literacy education to establish fundamental preventive measures.