Kakao and Daum Will Temporarily Abolish The Comments Section In Entertainment News Articles

Kakao has announced that they will abolish the comments section in entertainment news articles on Daum, Korea’s second largest portal site behind Naver.

Kakao’s co-CEO’s Yeo Min Soo and Jo Soo Yong held a press conference at Kakao’s headquarters in Pangyo to announce the news. The announcement comes at a time when malicious comments are gaining renewed attention due to their involvement in social problems, following Sulli’s passing.

Co-CEO Yeo Min soo commented on how the idea of a comments section did not turn out how they had hoped.

The launch of the comments section service was aimed at creating a healthy public forum for people to discuss things, but now we cannot help but acknowledge the side effects that were created with it.

As we could see from recent events, many people say that the level of insults and abuse directed towards the characters of the celebrities involved in entertainment news has reached a point of damaging the health of the public sphere.

Unlike the original purpose of the comments section, providing various information to users and increasing the convenience of searches with related search terms, we have judged that the side effects such as invasion of privacy and defamation are very serious.

— Yeo Min Soo

Daum plans on strengthening regulations on hate speech and attacks on character for the future, and reform the way their search box and auto-completion of search terms works, to enhance the protection of personal rights. Kakao and Daum merged in May 2014.

Finally, they announced that Kakao will be overhauling Daum’s news service, stating that they are preparing to launch a subscription-based content service that only Kakao has the capability to pull off. With this new service comes a new platform, one with no comment section and giving the power to the press.