▲ Co-representative of Kakao
Daum, a large domestic portal, recently decided to abolish entertainment news comments as a solution to the recent controversial comment.
Kakao's co-representative Yeo Min-soo and Cho Soo-yong held a press conference at Pangyo's headquarters and announced plans to reorganize the news and search service.
First of all, on this day, we will delete the search term related to people from 'real-time issues' in KakaoTalk, and we will close the comment service of entertainment articles within this month.
We've decided to eliminate the relevant search queries that pop up when searching for people after the portal this year.
This reorganization comes from a situation where malicious comments are attracting attention again as a social issue following the death of singer and actress Sully (real name Choi Jin-ri and 25).
In a remark, Mr. Ye said, "The start of the comment service was aimed at creating a healthy public sphere, but now we have to acknowledge the side effects."
"There are many comments that the level of personal blasphemy in the entertainment section's news comments has undermined the public health, as the recent unfortunate case reveals."
"We found that related search terms also had serious side effects such as privacy infringement and defamation, unlike the original intention to provide users with various information and improve the convenience of search," he explained.
In the future, we plan to reinforce regulations on expressions of hate and proficiency in comments, and to reinforce personality protection in real-time issue search terms and search term auto-completion.
In the first half of next year, Kakao decided to reorganize the entire news service on a subscription basis.
Representative Yeo said, "After a long discussion, we aimed to create 'subscription-based content service that only Kakao can do.'"
The new news service is designed to provide not only media articles, but also content and blog posts produced by influencers.
Kakao is also considering abolishing the entire commentary service and granting media autonomy.
"There may be risks in terms of business," Ye added. "But I believe this decision is the beginning of how we can fulfill our social responsibilities and create a healthier society."
(Photo: provided by Kakao, Yonhap News)