Pororo Disaster in Playback Buffering... Total Chaos on Wavve

Famous Kids Content 'Pororo The Movie'
Brief Unprotected Exposure of Adult Material
Mom Cafe Outrage Leads to Wave's Official Apology
19+ Adult Content Temporarily Suspended

[Asia Economy Reporter Minyoung Cha] Wave, an online video service (OTT) company that recently experienced service disruption issues, has come under fire for displaying adult videos for a few seconds on a popular kids' content screen. Along with a series of controversies involving adult-only content produced under the so-called 'hidden camera video' concept, the company has decided to completely revise its '19+ category' service operation policy.

Another Mistake While Uploading Large Volumes of Files...

According to the industry on the 31st, adult scenes were mixed into the Wave 'Pororo Movie' video on the 29th, exposing the content to young children for several seconds. The Pororo series features the famous penguin character 'Pororo' and is a highly popular program among young children.

Online communities such as mom cafes quickly raised critical voices. Unlike free services like YouTube, criticism mainly focused on the serious negligence in video management even in paid OTT services that charge monthly fees.

Earlier, on the morning of the 27th, Wave was hit by service errors that made live channels and some video-on-demand (VOD) content unavailable. Some dramas and shows are still difficult to access due to playback issues, and it is presumed that technical mistakes occurred during the problem resolution process.

Wave deleted the problematic videos, including the Pororo movie, and posted an official apology through the Wave application (app). They plan to assess the scale of consumer damage and prepare compensation measures. The company intends to secure the correct files and re-upload the content.

A Wave public relations team official explained, "It seems the problem occurred because a large number of files were encoded (converted) at once during the file recovery process following the previous service error. More meticulous management was needed during the programming process, but it was insufficient, so we will carefully monitor the situation."

Adult Content Fallout... Criticism of 'Hidden Camera' Concept Videos as Inappropriate

Additionally, there was criticism that Wave's existing '19+' category adult content was excessive. It was pointed out that distributing videos provocatively produced under social atmospheres such as 'leaked hidden camera' is inappropriate.

Since OTT services are often used with a single account shared among family members including minor children, there have been calls for strengthened responsibility in managing adult content. Wave added a 'Child Protection Settings' feature in April last year for customers sharing accounts with their children.

Wave will temporarily suspend related services in response to customer complaints. The company stated, "Adult films are supplied by content providers (CP) who have obtained video rating reviews for productions. We will revise and update the service guidelines through internal improvements to exclude adult films with excessive social harm."