Naver, Plagued by 'News Intervention Controversy,' Finally Abolishes 'Most Viewed News' (Comprehensive)

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] Naver has discontinued the 'Most Viewed News,' one of its core news services. This follows the suspension of real-time search terms (real-time keywords) and the discontinuation of the comment service, marking another news service restructuring measure.

'Most Viewed News' Disappears, Replaced by 'Ranking by Media Outlet'

On the 23rd, Naver announced, "The existing ranking service based on all articles will be discontinued, and the ranking service by media outlet will be strengthened." Until now, users could access categories such as politics, economy, society, IT/science to check the 'Most Viewed News,' which integrated all media outlets. However, with this change, 'Most Viewed News' will be replaced by 'Ranking News by Media Outlet.' Naver plans to display the number one article most viewed by users for each media outlet going forward.

The section that was previously displayed on the Naver News PC screen ranked up to 10th place has also been replaced by 'Most Viewed News by Media Outlet.' According to Naver, articles from 5 media outlets are shown at once, with one article each from 71 media outlets selected with equal probability.

Naver Minimizes Controversy Over News Intervention

This restructuring is interpreted as an extension of Naver's policy to minimize editorial intervention in news. Naver has been minimizing human editorial authority by switching news editing to artificial intelligence (AI) and introducing personalized news recommendation technology. During the general election period in April this year, the real-time keyword service was suspended. Naver also boldly discontinued the comment service for entertainment and sports, where ethical issues such as malicious comments had arisen.

Earlier, members of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee and the Political Affairs Committee from the People Power Party visited Naver headquarters on the 14th to protest allegations of manipulation of the news search algorithm. This issue was also raised again at the Political Affairs Committee's audit held at the National Assembly the day before.

Han Seong-sook, CEO of Naver, is appearing as a witness at the comprehensive government audit on the Office for Government Policy Coordination and others during the Political Affairs Committee meeting held at the National Assembly on the 22nd. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Jae-ok asked Naver CEO Han Seong-sook, who appeared as a witness, "Is there no human involvement in news editing?" CEO Han replied, "In the first audit (2017), humans were editing, but that part has now been improved," emphasizing again the AI-based editing by stating, "Editing is done by algorithms created by developers."

Regarding this restructuring, a Naver official explained, "Since switching the news service to an automatic recommendation model based on personal subscriptions in April last year, users' news consumption patterns have changed," adding, "More diverse articles are being consumed than before, and interest in rankings by subscribed media outlets has increased."

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