Seoul police in South Korea establish a special task force to handle fake online news related to Middle Eastern conflicts

On the 6th, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced that it has set up a dedicated unit to investigate the spread of online fake news related to the fighting in the Middle East. A Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency official said that its Cyber Crime Investigation Division has formed two task forces to handle false news related to the Middle East. “Once we find that false information has been uploaded, we will submit requests to relevant websites and the Korea Communications Standards Commission for removal and blocking. Only in the Seoul area, such incidents have already occurred 29 times,” including one case in which a well-known blogger spread a fake message related to oil transportation on the YouTube video platform. South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has, under the Information and Communications Network Act, indicted the blogger on charges of defamation for spreading false facts. The police plan to summon him for questioning soon. “We are investigating four YouTube accounts reported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Korea Petroleum Corporation.” A Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency official said, “We will crack down severely on the spread of fake news that triggers social unrest.” (China Central Television News)