Malicious Commenters Attacking SNS to Block Portal Comments

Creating Fake Accounts to Post Malicious Comments and Send Abusive DMs

(Photo by Getty Images Bank)

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] As domestic portals have stopped comment services on entertainment and sports news, malicious commenters seem to be moving en masse to global social networking services (SNS) such as Facebook and Instagram. Exploiting the fact that accounts can be easily created on global SNS without separate identity verification procedures, they create ghost accounts to post malicious comments (malpl) and send abusive direct messages (DM) indiscriminately to not only celebrities but also ordinary people.

Celebrities Suffer from Malicious Comments and Abusive DMs on Instagram

The deaths of celebrities and athletes who expressed suffering from malicious comments, including singer and actress Sulli (real name Choi Jin-ri) and female professional volleyball player Ko Yu-min, triggered the suspension of comment services on domestic portals such as Naver, Kakao, and Nate. However, as comment services have been blocked one after another on domestic portals, cases of damage caused by malicious comments on Facebook and Instagram are increasing.

Shin Min-a, a former member of the girl group I Love, was rescued by police after attempting an extreme act earlier this month. She revealed malicious DMs sent through Instagram and pleaded for the malicious comments against her to stop. Following the broadcast of a documentary program about Sulli, the Instagram account of singer Choiza, her ex-boyfriend, has been flooded with numerous malicious comments. Mina, a former member of the idol group AOA, shared abusive DMs sent from ghost accounts on her Instagram and expressed her distress.

In response to this situation, Instagram will introduce a 'comment warning' feature this month using artificial intelligence (AI) technology. This feature will notify users before posting a negative comment that it may be perceived as offensive by others, encouraging them to cancel the comment or use milder expressions. Instagram currently applies a machine learning-based function that automatically reports posts and malicious content intended for defamation or containing malicious comments. It has also introduced a 'comment filtering' feature that automatically filters malicious comments during live broadcasts.

Instagram: "We Will Remove Malicious Comments Thoroughly Rather Than Abolish Comments"

However, Instagram stated that it has no plans to abolish comment services like domestic portals. Instagram said, "Since free communication among users is the core of the Instagram platform, rather than completely blocking users' expression due to malicious comments, we will strive to accurately identify and remove only the negative and unhealthy parts."

Meanwhile, Naver stopped comment services on entertainment news from March and disclosed the history of comments users had written on news articles. Kakao also abolished comment services on entertainment news in October last year and added 'discrimination and hate' to the comment reporting criteria in the news comment services of portal Daum and KakaoTalk #tab in February. Nate abolished comment services on entertainment news in July and disclosed all users' comment histories. Additionally, last month, Naver, Kakao, and Nate all temporarily suspended comment services on sports news.