The defendant's appeal is dismissed.

1. The gist of the grounds for appeal was that the Defendant posted the same article as the facts charged on the bulletin board of the members of the C Association (hereinafter “instant association”)’s website. However, the purpose was to find out the major shareholders who participated in the act of breach of trust by the former president of the said association.

Therefore, the defendant did not have the purpose of slandering the criminal intent or victims of defamation, and the above act is related to the public interest and its illegality should be removed. However, the court below found the defendant guilty of the facts charged on a different premise. In so doing, the court below erred by misapprehending the legal principles, which affected the conclusion of the judgment.

2. Determination

A. Article 70(1) of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, Etc. provides that “a person who defames another person by openly exposing facts through an information and communications network for the purpose of defameing a person” shall be punished. Article 70(2) provides that “a person who defames another person by openly revealing false information through an information and communications network for the purpose of defameing a person.” In this case, “the purpose” requires an intention or purpose of defameing a person. As such, whether a person is intended to defame a person is intended or not shall be determined by considering all the circumstances regarding the expression itself, such as the content and nature of the relevant publicly alleged fact, the scope of the party who published the relevant fact, the method of expression, etc., and the degree of infringement of reputation that may be damaged or damaged by the said expression (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2009Do12132, Nov. 25, 2010). Meanwhile, defamation or false defamation through an information and communications network may not be applied to Article 310 of the Criminal Act.

(See Supreme Court Decision 2006Do648 delivered on August 25, 2006, etc.). B.

Judgment

(1) The above legal principles are as follows.