Seoul, South Korea - Naver is updating its news platform, focusing on content accuracy and user safety.
Why it matters:
As a dominant player in the search engine and desktop-based web environment, Naver's strategic move affects the entire South Korean tech ecosystem.
As the Korea Communications Commission attempts to regulate the tech giant, a proactive move would change the South Korean regulator's stance on Naver.
The Key Points
- Naver is changing several aspects of its news service. The Corrections, Rebuttals, and Post-Reports sections have been made more accessible under existing regulations. Information on the status of article corrections, including deliberations by committees such as the Press Arbitration Committee, will be displayed at the top of each article. This will increase transparency.
- Naver's fact-checking features will also be improved. The service will now accumulate articles that have been verified, and these will be listed based on how recent they are and the level of public interest they serve.
- Naver is also tightening controls on comment sections. Articles that the company's AI identifies as suicide-related will have their comment sections automatically closed and a suicide prevention banner displayed.
The Big Picture
Naver also updated its Green Internet page to disclose advanced content filtering technologies.
These include artificial intelligence programs such as GreenEye and CleanBot, designed to block harmful content such as pornography and malicious comments.
Since April last year, the service has also allowed users to follow specific commenters, a feature that has now received interface improvements for better user interaction.
The changes Naver is making align with a more significant industry trend of tech companies taking greater responsibility for content accuracy and user safety.
These changes are likely to have a lasting impact on industry governance.
