Consideration on self-regulation and legal system composition in the broadcasting and communication areas
Authors:   LAW RESEARCH INSTITUTE CHUNGBUK NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, Lee Boo-Ha 
Published: January 2024

Self-regulation can be defined as “an organized business group self-regulating the actions of its members to protect users.” If there is a need to respect the autonomous discipline of the business organization itself in a specific field, it would be good to introduce a self-regulation system. In newly emerging areas, areas that are rapidly changing or areas that require specialized or policy considerations, would be appropriate for business organizations in those areas to self-regulate because existing legal regulations do not reflect reality or cannot properly reflect reality. Even if a self-regulation system is introduced, the degree of legal intervention in the self-regulation system of business organizations may vary depending on the characteristics of the industry. If the scope of the area is diverse or subject to frequent change, the scope of self-regulation may be narrowed due to strong legal intervention, and in areas dealing with detailed, technical, and specialized matters, the private sector should be able to demonstrate efficiency and expertise. It is desirable to reduce the degree of legal intervention through self-regulation. In relation to freedom of speech, due to the constitutional order to guarantee the public’s freedom of expression as much as possible, state regulation should be minimized, and self-regulation by business organizations to replace it is judged to be effective. In addition, due to the emergence of new technologies and technological advancement in the field of broadcasting and communications, regulation by the existing positive system for industries in this field makes efficient industrial development difficult. However, as the provision of information through social media, Internet news, OTT services etc., the side effects caused by digital media exceeded a certain level and reached a level of social conflict and infringement of other people’s rights, countries around the world have started to regulate illegal information through national legal regulations. Self-regulation was judged to be insufficient to prevent the creation and distribution of false information, hate speech, etc. In order for a self-regulatory system to operate properly, it is important to secure the democratic legitimacy of self-regulatory organizations, operational transparency, independence, and enforcement of regulations. The German self-regulatory organization for multimedia service providers is the German Self-Regulation Organization for Multimedia Service Providers(FSM). The German Youth and Media Protection Committee approved FSM, a self-regulatory organizationy, to protect youth from media content. The United States is a country that operates a representative private self-regulation system. However, direct administrative regulations have recently become more prominent in the broadcasting and communications fields due to issues such as unfair trade or monopoly. The UK's self-regulatory organization is the Internet Watch Foundation(IWF). IWF carries out tasks such as deleting posts related to child sexual abuse, blocking access, and preventing search/access, and is operating a hotline as the most basic activity to make this possible. The Australian Communications and Media Authority(ACMA) is the broadcasting and communications regulator. ACMA is a government-affiliated organization and is a co-regulation model between the government and the private sector that supports and cooperates in the establishment of industry codes. The self-regulation system stipulated in Korea’s Information and Communications Network Act is actually close to administrative regulation. It is appropriate for information and communication service provider organizations to determine and implement a code of conduct for information and communication service providers, rather than a matter to be stipulated in the Information and Communications Network Act,