Following Seol-ri, the Death of Go Yu-min Incident Ultimately Leads to Comment Section Closure
[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] As the damage caused by malicious comments (mal-comments) has increased, comment services have disappeared not only from entertainment news but also from sports news. The series of deaths of celebrities and athletes who suffered from mal-comments, including singer and actress Sulli (real name Choi Jin-ri) and female professional volleyball player Go Yu-min, triggered this change.
According to the information and communication (IT) industry on the 29th, Naver and Nate temporarily suspended the comment service for sports news starting from the 27th, making it impossible to use comment services on sports news across all three major domestic portals. Kakao had temporarily suspended the comment service for sports news on the portal Daum on the 7th.
The reason domestic portals have stopped comment services on sports news as well is due to criticism that not only celebrities but also athletes have suffered from mal-comments. After Go Yu-min’s extreme choice on the 31st of last month, there were claims that the malicious comments posted on portals contributed to her death.
Immediately after the incident, when an interview video in which Go Yu-min expressed her feelings about mal-comments during her lifetime was released, public criticism intensified that athletes suffer mental distress from personal attack mal-comments just as much as celebrities do, and that portals have neglected this issue. Consequently, the portals ultimately decided to temporarily suspend comment services on sports news as well.
Naver stated regarding the suspension of the sports news comment service, "Unfortunately, comments targeting certain players to defame and belittle them were continuously generated, and we judged that the severity of malicious comments and the pain suffered by the players exceeded a level that could be overlooked."
Domestic portals had already abolished comment services for entertainment news, with Nate being the last to do so last month. Naver stopped comment services on entertainment news starting in March and disclosed the history of comments users had written on news articles. Additionally, they updated the 'AI Cleanbot,' which uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to analyze the context of sentences in comments to filter out mal-comments. The AI Cleanbot automatically detects and blinds comments containing profanity and vulgar language.
Kakao removed comment services for entertainment news in October last year, and in February added 'discrimination and hate' to the criteria for reporting comments on the news comment services of the portal Daum and KakaoTalk #Tab. They also introduced functions to manage the exposure of comment areas, such as 'covering' and 'folding.' Nate abolished comment services for entertainment news on the 7th of last month and disclosed all users’ comment histories.
The background for the portals’ abolition of entertainment news comment services includes the series of deaths of celebrities who suffered from mal-comments. The death of Sulli last year and other similar cases raised voices in society demanding improvements to comment services. At that time, Kakao co-CEO Yeo Min-soo explained the abolition of entertainment news comments by saying, "As a platform company that monetizes traffic, there were concerns, but we thought it was necessary to meet a greater social mission, which led to this decision."
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