The cyber diplomatic mission Vank (Director Park Ki-tae) announced on the 6th that it is launching a citizen legislative campaign to eradicate poverty marketing.

In connection with the participatory legislative platform "I am an AI Legislator" created by Vank—which allows any citizen to propose and amend laws and ordinances—citizens will directly draft an amendment to block poverty marketing in sponsorship advertisements.

Poverty marketing refers to a fundraising method where donation organizations solicit funds by excessively displaying provocative scenes related to the poverty of vulnerable groups, such as children.

Judging that poverty marketing infringes on the human rights of vulnerable individuals, Vank has previously campaigned to eradicate poverty marketing and report global distorted content.

As an extension of these efforts, Vank has now released a draft amendment to the "Act on Collection and Use of Contributions and Activation of Donation Culture" written by citizens through the AI Legislator platform.

The amendment introduces three major additions to the current law:

Restricting fundraising expressions that exaggerate or dramatize the situations of beneficiaries, undermine their dignity, or generalize entire specific countries or regions into an image of poverty.
Establishing procedures to obtain consent from the beneficiaries themselves—or legal representatives in the case of minors—when filming or featuring them.
Obligating organizations to provide donors not only with fundraising costs and methods for checking results, but also information on business details and local status.
Moving forward, citizens will lead legislative discussions by reviewing and modifying the draft provisions and delivering them to the relevant standing committee of the National Assembly.

"I am an AI Legislator" supports eight languages, enabling people from Africa—who have often been the subjects of portrayals for fundraising—to leave their opinions.

"The role of viewers does not end with feeling uncomfortable and changing the channel," said Vank Director Park Ki-tae. "Real change begins when everyone joins in proposing amendments at the AI Legislator platform for problems found not only in poverty marketing, but also in advertisements, broadcasts, and video content encountered in daily life."

Kwon So-young, a Vank researcher managing the campaign, stated, "Regulations on poverty marketing lie at the intersection of freedom of expression and the dignity of the individuals involved. We hope this amendment serves as an opportunity to transform the fundraising culture into a structure based on respect."

Anyone can participate in the campaign as an AI Legislator. Participants can check the draft posted at the citizen public legislative hearing on the "I am an AI Legislator" platform (peoplevision.one), leave a supportive signature, and share their opinions.

Vank plans to compile the opinions gathered from the public on the platform and deliver them to the National Assembly and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the competent government ministry.

Meanwhile, on the "I am an AI Legislator" platform, if a citizen enters just three sentences in everyday language, the platform's embedded "AI Legislative Assistant" compares and infers data from autonomous regulations of 243 local governments nationwide and National Assembly bill data in real time, completing bills and ordinance amendment proposals at a level ready for submission to actual councils in just a few minutes.

Additionally, as local-government-specific services, the platform provides an ordinance map covering 243 regions nationwide, an ordinance comparison radar, and an AI ordinance porting tool.

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