Dog Face Composite on Person's Face... Supreme Court Rules "No Punishment for Defamation"

Supreme Court: "Negative Emotions Expressed Somewhat Humorously"

The Supreme Court has ruled that simply distributing photos that composite a dog's face onto a person's face cannot be punished as defamation.

The Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Min Yu-suk) announced on the 27th that it upheld the lower court's ruling, which acquitted YouTuber A of some defamation charges and imposed a fine of 1 million won for the remaining charges.

A was indicted for defaming other YouTubers B and C in videos on their YouTube channel from 2018 to 2019. A insulted B by calling him a "fraudster" and "someone determined to run away after eating," while compositing a dog's face onto C's photo about 20 times in their videos.

The courts at all three levels ruled that the part involving compositing the dog's face did not constitute defamation, and only recognized the charges of defaming B as guilty.

The first and second trials judged, "Simply covering the face with a dog face drawing without other insulting expressions is insufficient to be recognized as lowering social value or evaluation."

The Supreme Court stated, "There is considerable room to view that the defendant used the animal drawing to cover the victim's face and attempted to express negative feelings toward the victim somewhat humorously," adding, "Although the video contains expressions that may offend the victim, it is difficult to conclude that it objectively constitutes insulting expressions that would lower the victim's social evaluation of personal dignity."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.