"'N번방 Incident Impossible on Naver'... Pornography Hunter 'XAI'"

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] As soon as a nude photo of a woman is uploaded to a Naver Cafe, the artificial intelligence (AI) 'X-eye' immediately detects and deletes it. The process from the photo being uploaded to its deletion happens almost in real time. At the same time, the ID that posted the problematic photo is subjected to a 'permanent restriction' and is blocked from using the cafe.

X-eye is named after X-ray. It means to thoroughly inspect Naver Cafes and other platforms to block obscene content. On the 14th, Namjeong Lim, the leader of Naver UGC Monitoring Operations, who demonstrated X-eye's operation to the reporter, said, "It is impossible for incidents like the Nth Room to occur on Naver." UGC Monitoring Operations is an organization that blocks illegal posts among user-uploaded content. Lim added, "When filtering was done by humans before, the exposure time was about 10 minutes, but X-eye aims to reduce the exposure time to 'zero.'"

Im Namjeong, Naver UGC Monitoring Operations Leader

◆Real-time Blocking of Obscene Content= Recently, as the reality of the Telegram Nth Room sharing sexual exploitation materials was revealed, Naver has strengthened its management of obscene content. Naver trained X-eye, which applies artificial neural networks, by classifying millions of images into about 40 categories. Previously, the method was to calculate the match rate with photos in the database, but X-eye cuts images into pieces, classifies color and shape, extracts features, and independently determines whether the content is obscene. Naver also trained X-eye to recognize everyday photos with body exposure, such as baby photos or medical images, as 'normal.' X-eye's accuracy has now developed to about 99%. Lim confidently stated, "Since there is a process where a human double-checks, the error rate is close to 0%." As obscene content is thoroughly blocked, the number of harmful content reports on Naver has decreased by about 92% compared to before the introduction of X-eye.

This stands out even more compared to overseas services like Google and Twitter, where controversies over obscene content continue. According to the Korea Communications Standards Commission, among 85,818 digital sexual crime materials from overseas providers from 2016 to February this year, only 27,159 (32%) were deleted voluntarily by these providers following the Commission's request.

◆X-eye 2 Blocking Spam Images= Since the passage of the Telecommunications Business Act and the Information and Communications Network Act amendments, known as the 'Nth Room Prevention Act,' last May, Naver is actively preparing for this. The amendment requires internet providers to delete digital sexual crime materials. Lim explained, "We plan to strengthen the reporting system to respond faster to illegal filming such as hidden camera footage while further improving X-eye's accuracy."

Naver is also preparing technical upgrades for X-eye. While the current X-eye has learned 40 categories, it will learn 130 categories in the future, enabling more detailed classification of obscene and illegal posts. Previously, only obscene images were filtered, but in the future, promotional posts using images, so-called 'spam images,' will also be classified and filtered. Lim said, "We plan to launch X-eye 2.0 next year," adding, "We will continue technological efforts in line with social changes such as the passage of the Nth Room Prevention Act."