The Report on Human Rights Situation in the Republic of Korea fact that Korea is a divided nation, and a view asserting strong freedom of expression to increase an individual’s political freedom and rights. However, in 2021, except for the traditional issues of ‘unconstitutionality of Article 7 (Praise, Incitement, etc.) of the National Security Act,’ all issues are incited from ‘excessive expression,’ due to the development of communications technologies, such as ‘the regulation of false news for the media, etc.,’ ‘penalties for distorting history,’ ‘penalties for defamation of high ranking officials,’ ‘controversy on the non-criminalization of contempt,’ ‘controversy on hate speech of AI Lee Luda,’ etc. Graph Respecting Opinion Presentation and Freedom of Expression (2019~2021) Statistics Respecting Opinion Presentation and Freedom of Expression (2019~2021) (Unit: %) Classification (Year) 2019 2020 2021 Ratio 77.6 81.1 83.2 Note: 1) Ratio of people answering “Respected” or “Very Respected” to a question on how much the opinion presentation and freedom of expression are respected in Korea. 2) Adults over the age of 19. Source: NHRCK, [Korean National Human Rights Survey], 2021. Ultimately, these changes imply a need to carefully consider the conflict and harmony between other social factors in how to view the freedom of expression and whether to restrict the freedom of expression. Next, we will look at some of the freedom of expression issues during 2021 in more detail. 40