In this working paper, Sook Jong Lee, Senior Fellow at the East Asia Institute and Steering Committee Member of the World Movement for Democracy, explains that authoritarian regimes use disinformation as a tool to challenge the legitimacy of political opposition or marginalize minority groups. In democracies, false information typically originates from politically polarized sectors to deepen existing political divisions. Exploiting the democratic principle of free speech, these groups often use social media platforms to produce and share disinformation. Additionally, democracies have increasingly become targets of foreign disinformation attacks. In the context of South Korea, Sook Jong Lee emphasizes that while there is a need to respond to threats of foreign disinformation, it is crucial to avoid undermining freedom of expression, suggesting social and media literacy education to empower individual users to discern disinformation.

Read Sook Jong Lee’s full paper here.