The National Assembly has passed a revised bill to suppress the distribution of false information online.

The Assembly approved during a plenary session on Wednesday a revision to the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, a day after the ruling Democratic Party introduced the bill. 

The bill aims to prohibit the circulation of false or fabricated information that infringes upon other people’s personal and property rights, or undermines public interest, with the intent to cause harm or obtain unfair gains.

With the bill, media outlets or YouTubers that deliberately distribute illegal, false or fabricated information to obtain undue profits and in the process inflict losses to other people, will be slapped with punitive damages as high as five times the actual damages incurred.

Those convicted of defamation based on true information with the intention of harming someone’s reputation could face up to three years in prison or be fined up to 30 million won, or about 20-thousand U.S. dollars.

With the bill's passage, a filibuster launched by the main opposition People Power Party(PPP) on Monday concluded. 

In launching such action, the PPP had argued that the bill seriously infringes on freedom of expression.