Portal Companies Designate AI-Related Harmful Terms Like Deepfake as 'Youth Protection Search Keywords'

The Korea Internet Self-Governance Organization (KISO) announced on the 22nd that it added 110 new search terms for youth protection last year in collaboration with portal member companies such as Naver, Kakao, and SK Communications (SK Comms).

Korea Internet Self-Governance Organization CI [Image=Korea Internet Self-Governance Organization]

Amid the recent increase in the creation of various content using artificial intelligence (AI) technology, search terms related to "deepfake" have been newly added.

The three portals?Naver, Kakao, and SK Comms?jointly build and manage the youth protection search term database with KISO. Currently, they operate a database of approximately 51,000 youth protection search terms, continuously updating and adjusting it to keep it up to date.

Additionally, the KISO Self-Regulation DB Committee simultaneously reviews cases where search terms previously designated as youth protection terms are removed if the search terms no longer yield harmful search results.

When a search term is designated as a youth protection search term, exposure to inappropriate search results for youth is restricted when the term is entered. General users can view the search results after an age verification process.

The search terms added by KISO last year include those related to illegal filming, sexual exploitation, drug trafficking, and new types of illegal loan scams, among other illegal and harmful content.

Regarding AI, representative deepfake-related search terms include "jiinneungyok" and "jiinhapseong." In addition, search terms related to the application (app) "Undress," which exposes some adult content in searches, were proactively designated as youth protection search terms.

Youth protection search terms are registered only when the word itself is harmful or when entering the search term is judged to expose harmful results. The newly added term "Undress" literally means comfortable clothing rather than formal wear, but recently, with the emergence of a deepfake app that removes clothing from people in photos, the number of users searching this term surged, raising concerns about misuse.

Hwang Yong-seok, chairman of the KISO Self-Regulation DB Committee, said, "The addition of search terms related to deepfake is a necessary measure to reduce the risk of portrait rights infringement, defamation, and other criminal law issues, and to prevent the possibility of connection to sexual exploitation or violence."