kakaotalk

ⓘ Starting from the second half of 2025, the “Talk Profile” area has been moved under the Posts and Comments service’s metrics, reflecting its strengthened characteristics. Accordingly, Talk Profile data is no longer included in the General Chat metrics of this report; the corresponding figures are available in the Enforcement > Posts and Comments report.

In the first half of 2026, approximately 139,000 accounts were subject to restrictions in General Chat, a decrease of approximately 16.8% from the previous six-month period.

“Fraud and Impersonation” accounted for the largest share of restricted accounts at 72.9%, followed by “Illegal Spam, Including Gambling, and Service Disruption” at 14.0%, “Obscenity and Sexual Content” at 4.9%, “Illegal Goods and Services” at 4.8%, and “Investment Advisory and Other Policy Violations” at 3.4%.

Compared with the previous period, account restrictions decreased by approximately 32.4% for “Investment Advisory and Other Policy Violations,” 21.4% for “Fraud and Impersonation,” 21.3% for “Obscenity and Sexual Content,” and 19.5% for “Illegal Goods and Services.” Restrictions for “Illegal Spam, Including Gambling, and Service Disruption” increased by approximately 36.0%. The share of reported content acted on within one hour reached 99.59%, an improvement of 1.13 percentage points.

“Fraud and Impersonation” accounted for the largest share of restricted accounts in General Chat. During this half-year period, various tactics were identified, including romance scams, requests for money using work-from-home opportunities or simple paid tasks as bait, and attempts to direct users to register on external websites. Although the number of restricted accounts decreased by 21.4% compared to the previous half-year period, newly identified tactics, including scams involving purported live broadcasts, threats based on false claims of kidnapping, no-show scams, and insurance fraud, were incorporated into Kakao’s detailed enforcement criteria. Kakao is also strengthening its response framework to prevent accounts used in criminal activity from returning to the service and to prevent further harm, including by applying appropriate service restrictions to accounts registered with phone numbers confirmed to have been used in phishing crimes, based on information provided by relevant authorities.

“Illegal Spam, Including Gambling, and Service Disruption” increased by 36.0%. Large volumes of promotional messages offered free rewards for online casino and slot sites. The increase in account restrictions appears to reflect stronger enforcement informed by accumulated reports and similar patterns of abuse.

“Obscenity and Sexual Content” decreased by 21.3%. Common examples included links promoting adult websites, the sharing of explicit photos and videos, and attempts to direct users to adult content. Account restrictions in this category continued to decline from the previous period.

“Illegal Goods and Services” decreased by 19.5%, with promotional approaches involving private lending and loan services accounting for much of the activity identified. The decline appears to reflect continued enforcement following the strengthening of policies on illegal lending and debt collection in June 2025. During this period, Kakao also refined its enforcement guidelines for lending advertisements and continued to monitor emerging variations, including demands for personal information and the exposure of borrowers’ information.

“Investment Advisory and Other Policy Violations” decreased by 32.4%. Common examples included sharing trading signals in investment chat groups and directing users to external channels such as Telegram and BAND. The decline partly reflected a classification change that moved violations involving illegal cryptoasset exchange and trading into “Illegal Goods and Services.” Attempts to attract users to investment chat groups under new names were also observed from June onward, and Kakao will continue to monitor these activities.

In the first half of 2026, account restrictions declined across most major policy violation categories in General Chat, while gambling-related spam and new forms of fraud and impersonation continued to emerge. Kakao will continue to analyze reporting patterns and unusual account activity, refining its detection and enforcement systems and detailed enforcement guidelines as forms of abuse evolve.