"Strengthening User Choice"... Kakao Revamps Mobile 'Daum' News

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Kakao is set to revamp Daum News in a way that strengthens news users' choice rights and media companies' editorial rights.

On the 25th, Kakao announced that it will revamp mobile Daum News by introducing a new news arrangement method, a media subscription space, and a comment policy. Alongside, it released detailed materials explaining the news exposure algorithm in collaboration with media experts. The biggest feature of this revamp is the enhancement of user choice and media editorial rights. Users can select their preferred news arrangement method from various options, and media companies can directly select the news to be exposed on the mobile Daum homepage and edit the subscription page.

First, a ‘My News’ tab has been added to the mobile Daum homepage where users can view news from their selected media companies. Media companies can directly edit the news exposed in My News and choose between in-link (viewing news within the portal) and out-link (moving to the media company’s homepage to view news) methods.

In the existing News tab, users can choose how to view news by selecting from three news arrangement methods: ‘Latest’, ‘Personalized’, and ‘Deep Reading’. All news exposed in the News tab are composed of news directly selected by media companies.

The Latest method provides news in chronological order of creation time, the Personalized method recommends news selected by media companies based on the user’s previous news consumption history, and the Deep Reading method shows articles that users have read deeply and for a long time based on the time spent on the news page. The exposure order of the three arrangement methods will be randomized during a beta test period to help users adapt initially.

Within the News tab, new sections have been created for short-form videos around one minute long: ‘Today’s Shorts’, ‘Investigative News’, and ‘Fact-Check News’. In Today’s Shorts, users can watch short-form videos provided by 117 partner companies across fields such as news, economy & finance, IT, health & food, entertainment, and sports. Popular content providers like Hey.News, SamproTV, Techmong, Today’s House, and Fitbly participate. The Investigative News section features about 20 domestic award-winning works including this month’s journalist awards, and the Fact-Check News section gathers news where media companies have verified the factual relationships of issues.

Kakao also released the ‘Daum News Arrangement Guide’, which explains the news algorithm in an easy-to-understand way, marking an industry first. This material was created in collaboration with external media experts recommended by the Korean Association for Journalism and Communication Studies through a ‘Working Group for Transparency of News Algorithms’. The working group includes four experts: Professor Jonghyuk Lee from Kyung Hee University’s Department of Media Communication, Professor Jongsup Lim from Sogang University’s College of Knowledge Convergence Media, Professor Hoyoung Yoon from Ewha Womans University’s Department of Communication and Media, and Professor Jiyoung Han from KAIST’s MoonSul Graduate School of Future Strategy.

To respond to societal demands for algorithm transparency, Kakao has disclosed news tab arrangement histories, established an algorithm ethics charter, explained news algorithms through platforms like Brunch and academic papers, and last month set up a Technology Ethics Committee.

New policies to foster a better comment culture will also be applied. First, to strengthen the social responsibility and positive functions of news comments, the ‘Identity Verification System’ temporarily operated during election periods will be applied permanently. As of August, 97% of users have completed identity verification. Considering that less than 0.1% of users write about 10% of all comments, the number of comments allowed per ID per day will be reduced from 30 to 20.

Kakao has applied policies to create a better comment culture, such as Safe Bot, which uses AI technology to analyze and filter unpleasant comments, abolishing entertainment and sports comments to prevent defamation or indiscriminate false slander against specific individuals, and ‘Recommended Comments’ sorting that displays comments in a random order based on feedback left on comments.

Im Kwangwook, head of Kakao’s Media Business Division, said, “We applied new news arrangement methods and media subscription functions so that users can access news more diversely and broadly. We will continue efforts to expand opportunities to access various news and create a better news consumption environment.”

Meanwhile, the ‘My View’ and ‘Discovery’ tabs currently available on KakaoTalk and the Daum portal will only be accessible from the third tab in KakaoTalk.

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