11 Cases Detected and Corrected in Broadcasting Review Committee Monitoring
4 Cases on DC Inside, 3 on Ilbe, and Others
Monitoring Neglected Despite Traumatic Impact of Explicit Photos at Time of Incident
On the morning of the 30th of last month, an ambulance was heading near the site of the Halloween fatal accident in Itaewon, Yongsan-gu, Seoul. [Image source=Yonhap News]
[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] Major portal companies such as Naver and Kakao have established guidelines to curb hate speech related to the 'Itaewon Disaster,' but it has been confirmed that a significant number of provocative photos and videos capturing the accident scene were circulated and re-spread through anonymous online communities.
According to the office of Kim Young-sik, a member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Communications Committee from the People Power Party, the Korea Communications Standards Commission held an emergency Communications Review Subcommittee meeting on the 31st of last month and found that most of the 11 photos and videos subject to deletion and access blocking were posts from community sites.
By service provider, there were 4 cases from DC Inside, 3 from Ilgan Best Storage (Ilbe), 1 from GaeDrip, 1 from Twitter, 1 from Arca, and 1 from T Cafe. DC Inside is the largest domestic community site with approximately 170 million daily page views.
The Korea Communications Standards Commission conducts its own monitoring and complaint reception procedures and forwards some of these cases to the Broadcasting and Communications Review Subcommittee. Although the Communications Review Subcommittee generally meets about twice a week, cases related to the Itaewon Disaster were classified as urgent after internal monitoring and were proactively addressed.
The Korea Communications Commission also viewed the issue as not limited to portals immediately after the disaster and requested broad cooperation regarding provocative posts on social networking services (SNS) and community sites.
Major portal sites quickly prepared countermeasures. Last month, Naver and Kakao launched a 'Subcommittee on Discriminatory and Hate Speech (tentative name)' centered around the Korea Internet Self-Governance Organization (KISO) and began drafting guidelines. Twitter Korea posted media-related policy notices, and Kakao posted announcements on its Cafe and KakaoStory platforms. The anonymous workplace community Blind also urged users to be cautious when posting through its notices. In contrast, DC Inside and Ilbe did not post any related announcements.
Indiscriminate sharing of videos and photos from the accident scene online not only exacerbates the pain of bereaved families and victims but also has a high potential to cause collective trauma. The Korean Neuropsychiatric Association urged on the 30th of last month, "When a disaster with significant casualties occurs, the public experiences psychological trauma," and called for people to "stop spreading unfiltered videos and photos from the accident scene."
Meanwhile, the number of related complaints received by the Korea Communications Standards Commission as of the afternoon of the 3rd totaled 125, with 35 related to broadcasting and 90 to communications. This is an increase of 20 cases compared to 105 the previous day. At the second Communications Review Subcommittee meeting held on the 3rd, following the one on the 31st, 28 cases were ordered to be corrected.
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