16% of Illegal and Harmful Information on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Not Removed

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] The Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) announced on the 28th that 16% of the 8,288 cases of illegal and harmful information voluntarily regulated upon request to the five major overseas operators?Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram?in the first quarter were not deleted.

In January, the KCSC established an international cooperation inspection team and requested voluntary regulation of 8,288 cases of illegal and harmful information from major overseas operators such as Google. Among these, 6,982 cases were addressed through deletion or blocking by the operators, but 1,306 cases of illegal information received no action.

The number of voluntary regulation requests was highest for Twitter with 4,348 cases, followed by Instagram with 2,661 cases, Facebook with 648 cases, YouTube with 436 cases, and Google with 195 cases. Among these, Instagram, Facebook, and Google accepted over 90% of the KCSC’s requests, but Twitter and YouTube showed compliance rates of only 74.4% and 83.3%, respectively.

The KCSC explained that despite multiple requests for voluntary regulation regarding issues such as the denigration of the values of the May 18 Democratic Movement, historical distortion, and rumors related to the novel coronavirus infection (hereinafter COVID-19), some types of content remain unaddressed. The inspection team is cooperating with overseas operators to encourage them to apply voluntary regulations. Going forward, to promote more active responses from overseas operators, the KCSC plans to visit their overseas headquarters and strongly demand cooperation.