Posted a false review?... YouTuber booked for 'defamation', acquitted

A decision has been made not to forward a YouTuber who was under police investigation for posting malicious home appliance review videos.

On the 14th of last month, Daejeon Yuseong Police Station decided not to forward Mr. A, a man in his 40s, on charges of defamation under the Information and Communications Network Act.

Mr. A was accused of posting a video containing false facts about the products of electronics company B on his YouTube channel this year.

Company B claimed that Mr. A exaggerated the defect rate of its products by inflating it compared to the actual rate and concluded that the cause of the defects was a manufacturing defect, unlike the reality.

Mr. A denied the charges, saying that he compared the defect rate with similar product lines through an actual investigation.

In addition, the company's name was not mentioned in the video, and the product was mosaiced, so it was emphasized that the manufacturer of the product could not be identified as Company B.

The police determined that Mr. A was not guilty.

The police said, "The content contained in the video was composed based on the suspect's own investigation as well as the results of experiments by private companies and researchers. The suspect requested Company A to make improvements in this regard, but the company ignored this request. In the long term, it appears that Company A also needs to inspect or correct the cause of the defect rate."

At the same time, he explained the reason for the decision not to forward the video, saying, "The suspect posted the video based on evidence for the purpose of public interest, not to slander Company A, so it cannot be said that there was a perception that it was false."

Attorney Cho Sang-soo of Daeryun Law Firm, who represented Mr. A, said, "Article 310 of the Criminal Act stipulates that illegality arises if the facts stated are true and solely for the public interest." He added, "We emphasized that consumer complaints have been filed with Mr. A, who is recognized in the home appliance field and has many subscribers, and that we produced a video based on these to prevent damage."
 

Go Woori (wego@ikbc.co.kr)

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Posted a false review?... YouTuber booked for 'defamation', acquitted (link)