The president, a former prosecutor, is turning to lawsuits, state regulators and criminal investigations to clamp down on speech that he calls disinformation, efforts that have largely been aimed at news organizations.
Some South Koreans accuse Mr. Yoon of repurposing the expression as justification for defamation suits and to mobilize prosecutors and regulators to threaten penalties and criminal investigations.
South Koreans are proud of the vibrant democracy and free press they won after decades of military dictatorship, and, more recently, of their country’s growing soft-power influence.
The Korea Communications Standards Commission, which typically blocks websites featuring gambling, pornography or North Korean propaganda, said it intended to screen all online media to eliminate “fake news” after its new chairman, a Yoon appointee, called it “a clear and present danger.”
South Korea’s democracy appears rollicking, but its news organizations have long suffered low public trust, as people viewed them as kowtowing to corporate interests and pandering to partisan bias.
After the South Korean broadcaster MBC published what it called a hot-mic clip of the president using an expletive to describe American lawmakers last year, he adopted a more hostile stance.
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