Seoul, Aug 3 (IANS) South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has instructed the government to draw up measures to fundamentally prevent the spread of fake news through online platforms, like YouTube, minutes from a Cabinet meeting held in June showed Sunday.

“There are too many instances where fake news is used to earn money,” Lee was quoted as saying in the minutes from the June 19 meeting disclosed by the Interior Ministry. “Resorting to illegal actions to earn money should be fundamentally prevented.”

Lee suggested imposing punitive measures, such as exemplary damages, on such YouTubers, urging the Justice Ministry to review relevant measures, Yonhap News Agency reported.

During the meeting, Lee asked then Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul about whether the Vietnamese people request an apology from South Korea, in an apparent reference to the massacre of civilians by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War.

He then said South Korea should do its best in its ties with Vietnam and ordered the government to review measures, such as accepting more foreign workers from the Southeast Asian country, as part of humanitarian efforts.

Lee also called on the Land Ministry to reform the public housing system to prevent property price hikes and retrieve returns from such housing projects to the public sector, according to the minutes.

Meanwhile, the South Korean government is expected to postpone its decision on whether to allow Google to export the country’s high-precision map data overseas after the outcome of the upcoming summit between South Korea and the United States, according to officials on Sunday.

In February, the US tech giant submitted an application to the state-run National Geographic Information Institute, seeking approval for the transfer of 1:5,000-scale high-precision map data to its data centres abroad.

According to relevant regulations, the review panel is required to notify Google of its decision within 60 days of the application date, with the option of a 60-day extension. The South Korean government exercised the extension and was expected to reach a decision by the second deadline of August 11.

“Despite the timeline, there is a high possibility that the decision deadline will be further extended,” an official said. “Reaching a conclusion before the Korea-U.S. summit could influence other agenda items to be discussed at the meeting.”

Consultations are underway between Seoul and Washington to set a date for a summit between President Lee and US President Donald Trump, as Trump said last week that Lee will visit the White House in two weeks.

The proposed map transfer has sparked heated debate over national security, digital sovereignty and broader trade concerns, while the US has cited the issue as a key non-tariff barrier. But the matter was excluded from the recent tariff negotiations between the two nations.

“Security-related concerns, including the map issue, would be on the table for the upcoming Korea-US summit,” an official of Seoul’s presidential office said.

The decision on the Google issue will be made by the map data export review panel, which involves officials from major ministries, including Defence, Foreign Affairs, Industry and Science, as well as the National Intelligence Service.

–IANS

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