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South Korean Online Communities Will Need to Scan Every Images with AI Censorship Tools
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News
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g92o4k73la
June 4, 2026, 12:29pm
Due to recent regulation changes (전기통신사업법), the South Korean government is requiring internet communities and forum owners to scan every user uploaded images and videos on their website, by AI.
The hardware to run these AI models are also not provided by government, website owners have to buy datacenter grade Nvidia GPUs by themselves, putting financial pressure to small businesses and forums.
Websites will need to implement these hardware and software features, starting immediately from July 1st, which is just next month.
Here is the original image provided from Korean government, specifying the hardware requirements for AI models. I also added English translated image, made with nano banana (sorry for using ai for this…)
IMG_25981280×1693 116 KB
translated896×1185 373 KB
Related article (in Korean):
이미지 올려도 사전 검열? '찬반 대립' 배경은
국내 인터넷 커뮤니티에 올리는 이미지도 인공지능(AI)으로 사전 검열하는 정책이 가시화됐다. 사회 안전망 필요성과 표현의 자유 침해 사이에서 여론은 엇갈린다.'n번방 방지법'으로 불린 전기통신사업법 개정안은 2021년 시행됐다. AI를 이용해 SNS, 메신저, 커뮤니티 등지에 업로드...
Post from Korean forum/news website(루리웹) owner, after listening briefing from Korean government, expressing how ridiculous the situation is:
7월부터 바로 적용하라고 하네요
말이 이랬다 저랬다 어쩌자는 건지회의장에 있던 사람들 다 어의가 없어서 다들 웃는 상황이6개월 유예기간 준다고 그래서 다들 당장 적용 생각 안하고 있는데장비 수급이 불가능하다는 이야기에자기들은 장비는 모른다 법 기준이 7월 부터이니 해야 한다고 답을 하네요
This feels really dystopian, even for South Korean standards.
WhinyHamletPayer
June 4, 2026, 2:41pm
And this is why South Korea has been ranked only slightly better in terms of press freedom than their authoritarian counterpart North Korea.
1 Like
Regime6045
June 4, 2026, 4:35pm
And what do they even want to censor? Nudity/porn? If so, why do you need some super strong Nvidia hardware, it can’t be so hard to filter it out even without AI?
crossroads
June 4, 2026, 8:13pm
I would say it is either written by incompetent lawmakers or by someone whose goal is to kill small, free and open communities. But most likely both
1 Like
g92o4k73la
June 4, 2026, 11:19pm
I’m not fluent in law so I might be wrong, but the law itself roughly states about illegally filmed porns without subject’s consent, and CSAM materials.
But in practice, it is much worse.
South Korea has been pushing to classify creative works like drawings and novels as CSAM if it contains minors. If you drew NSFW fanart about some 2D anime character that is 17 years old? yup, that is CSAM right there, prepare for interrogation and jail time.
While porn is basically illegal in South Korea, AI model seems to be even more sensitive, blocking even mild nudity in general. This is known because the law itself is not new, it is now just getting expanded to include internet communities and forums, but the law has been in effect for messenger apps like KakaoTalk since 2021, and there have been cases where the ai model censored photos of normal swimsuits, anime drawings, memes, any photo that contains text “sex”, and even linear algebra math problems for some reason.
Few days ago in Korea, there has been a controversy about creating memes about dead former president, 노무현. This system might censor memes about politicians in the future, who knows.
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