On 7 March 2023, the Special Committee on Fandom and Democracy (SCFD) proposed policies regarding prevention of fake news to the Korean government. The committee is an affiliated organization of the Presidential Committee for National Cohesion built for specific purposes; research on fandom politics which have a great importance in Korea. The term “fandom politics” refers to a certain social phenomenon where only few people represent the majority on social media due to the digital divide. This can disturb people from freely sharing their political views as only a small number of people dominate the whole social media platforms. In addition, such a phenomenon resulted in extremely polarized political views, making it difficult for democracy to be realized.

     Reportedly, SCFD has been consistently discussing such issues for six months ever since it was established in October, 2023 and finally announced its policy proposal on 7 March. In the press release, SCFD condemned fake news and fandom politics circulating on the internet, saying this is what hinders democracy. Then, it announced its policy proposal aiming at three goals: Creating a healthy political fandom culture, restoring media public opinion, and restoring party politics. In particular, SCFD suggested the regulation on users of media platforms such as YouTube creators. The impact of this regulation is expected to reach only to certain influential users who have many views or viewers. Also, as for fake news, SCFD took a resolute attitude and proposed very specific policies. Firstly, establishing a remedy system where people who get damaged by fake news was suggested. On top of that, they also mentioned that the media needs to regularly prove their transparency by regularly reporting the accuracy of information so that they take social responsibility as a crucial part of society. Lastly, they asked citizens to actively participate in the movement toward a healthy Internet community.

     Many problems have emerged with the rapid development of the Internet. Abuse of social media and plenty of inaccurate information have been one of the most chronic problems all over the world, but it has not been easy to catch up the pace as things happen so fast.  Thus, people hope this proposal will be a big step for a better society where opinions are all respected.