Choi Young-ae, Human Rights Commissioner, "Welcome the Revision of Kakao and Naver News Comment Policies"

Statement on the 5th: "Starting Point for Voluntary Change to Eradicate Hate Speech"

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[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Byung-don] Choi Young-ae, Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission, recently expressed her welcome for the news comment policy reforms by Kakao and Naver.

In a statement on the 5th, Chairperson Choi said, “It is a positive change toward eradicating hate speech that major domestic internet platforms have recognized the harm of hate speech online and expressed their willingness to respond. We welcome Kakao and Naver’s voluntary efforts to address this and will actively support the establishment of more systematic and concrete standards going forward.”

Earlier, on the 26th of last month, Kakao revamped the news comment service and operational policies on the portal 'Daum' and the KakaoTalk tab. They strengthened the malicious comment reporting and sanction policies by adding reporting categories not only for profanity and abusive language but also for discrimination and hate. If a reported malicious comment is confirmed to be problematic, the comment will be deleted and sanctions will be imposed on the author.

Following this, Naver also revamped its service from the 5th to prevent related search terms from appearing in search results for personal names. From that day, searching for a person’s name, stage name, group name, group name + person’s name, or position/affiliation + person’s name on Naver will no longer display related search terms. Additionally, the entertainment news comment service will be temporarily suspended starting that day.

Chairperson Choi pointed out, “The rapid development of the internet environment has greatly influenced the advancement of democracy and social progress based on the free exchange of information beyond time and space. However, on the other hand, hate speech against immigrants, refugees, sexual minorities, and people with disabilities has rapidly spread online, and cases leading to actual hate crimes raise concerns that the internet space reinforces prejudice against social minorities and threatens democracy and social integration.”

She continued, “The issue of hate speech urgently requires voluntary responses through cooperation among online participants rather than direct sanctions. The Human Rights Commission’s ‘Hate Speech Report’ also emphasizes the need to establish a self-regulatory system.”

Finally, Chairperson Choi added, “Hate speech threatens democratic values and peace, and when certain groups become victims of hate speech but our society remains silent, it not only appears as indifference to prejudice and intolerance but can also send the wrong message of tolerating hate speech. We hope that efforts like this policy reform will lead to a collective change where hate speech is not used across various fields.”

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