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President Lee Jae-myung speaks during a meeting with senior secretaries and aides at Blue House on the 28th. / Photo via Yonhap News

President Lee Jae-myung stated on June 2 regarding the case of spreading false posts about a "government forced dollar sale rumor" that "the act of deliberately spreading false facts must be strictly punished." He thus defined fake news that can shake the foreign exchange market and economic sentiment as a public harm rather than an expression of free speech.

President Lee made the remarks on his X (formerly Twitter) account in the morning while sharing an article reporting that the police had identified 10 individuals who spread the 'forced dollar sale' fake news.

"Acts that cause social chaos and economic damage by deliberately spreading false facts must be tracked down and severely punished without fail," President Lee noted. "The dissemination of false facts that inflicts harm on the public is neither freedom of expression nor a subject of tolerance." The stance is interpreted as a judgment that disinformation goes beyond mere expressions of opinion and can inflict direct damage on social order and economic stability.

President Lee also emphasized that spreading false posts cannot be viewed as a prank or a game. "Just as killing a person or destroying the order and values of a community are serious crimes that must be severely punished even if done as a prank or a game," he stated, adding, "Should we perhaps send some pizza to the hard-working police investigation team?"

Earlier, Goo Yun-chul, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Finance and Economy, filed a complaint against the authors of the false posts regarding the rumor of a government forced dollar sale. The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency identified 14 related accounts the previous day and discovered the identities of 10 of them.

                                                                                                         Park Young-hoon