Kakao to shut down comments page in entertainment page and trending search terms

Media platform responds to increasing online bullying and recent death of Sulli

Kakao is moving to shut down the comments page of the entertainment news page of its portal site Daum and disable search terms related to specific individuals. An important factor in this decision was the recent death of singer/actor Choi Jin-ri (stage name Sulli, 25), who had been repeatedly dogged by malicious posts. Kakao explained that it was “working to reduce the side effects that arise from the comments page as a forum for public discussion.”

Yeo Min-su and Joh Su-yong, co-CEOs of Kakao, held a press conference on the morning of Oct. 25 to announce a plan for reorganizing news and search services. In addition to discontinuing the “real-time trending search terms” feature that appeared on the Kakao Talk application’s “pound sign tab” as of 1 pm that day, they said Kakao would also be closing the Daum entertainment news comments page within the month and discontinuing search terms related to specific people by the end of the year. The disabling of search terms is to be applied to all public figures, including entertainers.

Kakao explained that its reorganization plan emerged out of considerations of the “portal site as a forum for public discussion.”

“Replies have a positive role as a forum where anyone can express their opinion, but as a recent unfortunate case shows, character attacks occurring in news replies in our entertainment section have reached a level that is harmful to the forum’s health,” Yeo explained.

“We concluded that serious side effects have been arising from the ‘related search terms’ in terms of infringements of privacy and defamation, contrary to the original aim of providing different information and improving search convenience for users,” he added.

“We plan to first take action in response to the human toll, and later on to research whether action might be possible to bolster a positive role in terms of political issues and societal occurrences,” he said.

The plan for reducing the potential for infringements of personal rights comes at a time when Kakao is embarking on a full-scale revamp of its portal site Daum and content services. Going forward, it appears likely to reexamine its real-time trending search term and portal news aggregating features.

“The real-time trending search term feature is meaningful as a way of showing trends, but there are also significant repercussions that arise from the ‘real-time’ aspect,” Kakao explained.

“We are planning to re-examine the continuation of the services in question,” it said.

Noting “issues that have been raised concerning the means by which portal sites aggregate and provide news,” Kakao explained, “We are working on developing subscription services for the content that members of the public want, going beyond the current approach of subscribing to particular media companies and taking into account a broad range of things including news and the content that is being provided by influencers.”

Kakao’s decision also appears likely to influence Naver, South Korea’s top-ranked portal site. Naver has responded to the issue of malicious posts with a “non-hurtful comments campaign” in which curse words in posts are replaced with asterisks and appear with a warning message, along with a “media comments selection system” in which companies choose their own comments policies. Naver has also given media companies the authority to aggregate news as they choose.

Yeo Min-su and Joh Su-yong, co-CEOs of Kakao. (provided by Kakao)

Discontinuation of Naver’s real-time trending search unliklely

A discontinuation of Naver’s real-time trending search terms appears realistically unlikely, though. The real-time search terms are a key means of marketing for the site, which has set the goal of transforming into a shopping platform. Appearing as a witness during a parliamentary audit on Oct. 2 by the National Assembly Science, ICT, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee, Naver CEO Han Seong-sook was asked whether Naver was prepared to discontinue its real-time search terms.

“Google and the rest of the global search portals provide similar services in countries besides South Korea,” she replied, adding that Naver “no longer aggregates news after remarks last year about its news aggregation.”

A Naver official explained that day that the company “has been revamping its comments and news policies.”

“Daum was late in coming out with a plan, but this is not an issue that’s going to be resolved by shutting down replies.”

By Choi Min-young, staff reporter

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