Twitter may face probe in Korea over pornography
Play
Seoul (The Korea Herald) -- American social media service Twitter may experience a tough year in Korea as it is likely to face government scrutiny over its lack of action against pornography distribution.
According to the Korea Communications Standards Commission, a special task force against online distribution of pornography will kick off as early as February, with a particular focus on foreign social media such as Twitter.
“We will closely look into these media. We are aware of the problems,” an official at the commission’s youth protection division said.
“We won’t let this harmful content damage our children,” she added.
Twitter has faced public scrutiny since last year, when police caught 117 people distributing lewd content via the platform and found 33 of the distributors to be elementary school students. Some users aged between 7 and 12 even posted pictures of themselves naked simply to attract more followers.
“If you just insert the keyword ‘breast’ or ‘pantie’ on Twitter search section, you can find heaps of racy and inappropriate photos and messages because they are not screened from underage users. This is very offensive,” said Kim Ji-eun, an elementary school teacher.
The fact that Twitter requires only an email address to create an account fuels the problem, industry insiders say.
“Even if you get caught, you can always create another account, then another. ... There’s no limit to uploading content and looking at it, nor to distributing it. This is why porn distributors are turning to Twitter these days,” an IT worker said.
