Photo = Yonhap news

 

 

[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] Naver is preparing to take action against comment manipulation in an effort to prevent public opinion distortion ahead of South Korea’s presidential election. The company plans to introduce measures, including posting notifications when comment manipulation is detected, by the end of this month.



Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon addressed the issue during a National Assembly committee meeting last Friday, responding to concerns raised by Democratic Party lawmaker Hwang Jeong-ah about the rise of divisive and misleading comments. Choi acknowledged the problem of artificially inflating comment "likes" and confirmed that Naver is taking technical measures to address it.



“We are aware of the issues related to artificially increasing comment engagement, and we deeply regret the technical shortcomings that have allowed this to continue,” Choi said. "We’ve implemented technical solutions to alert both the media outlets and users immediately when such manipulation occurs, and these will be fully operational by the end of April."



The new system will notify news outlets when abnormal traffic spikes are detected in comment sections and display a public notification to users reading the article.


Additionally, Choi responded to questions about Naver’s suspension of ads for AI startup competitors, admitting it was a mistake and promising to prevent similar issues in the future. Earlier this year, AI service platform Lutton Technologies claimed that Naver had banned performance-based display ads due to being a competitor.

 

 

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