kakaotalk

How many accounts were restricted from Open Chats, Boards and Voicerooms because they were reported?

In order to create a comfortable service use environment, KakaoTalk enforces measures that temporarily restricts accounts, that have been reported by multiple users, from using the service (Ensure Stability and Reliability > A Large Number of Reports Accumulated), and also temporarily prohibits users, who have accumulated multiple message reports from the Open Chat service, from using Open Chat. However, there are cases where the policy that restricts users who have accumulated reports has been abused and innocent users have been reported. Users who have been falsely reported can file an appeal, which will be quickly reviewed by the reviewer, and the falsely reported user’s service restriction will be removed when necessary.

The above data contains the number of accounts that have been restricted from using the service following the reviewer’s review, as well as the number of accounts that have been temporarily prohibited from using Open Chat due to a large number of accumulated reports.

Why were accounts restricted from Open Chats, Boards and Voicerooms?

Sharing information on violence, cruelty, hatred and animal abuse in the Open Chatroom are all considered a violation of the Operation Policy(Objectionable or Sensitive Information > Violent or Disgusting Information). Even if the purpose is to share information, sharing information, such as photos or videos that did not blur out violent images of an accident, can be a violation of policies and may lead to a service restriction.

In addition, the use of profanity and vulgar language that may cause discomfort to others as well as acts of extreme verbal violence against specific groups based on discriminatory perceptions are prohibited.(Objectionable or Sensitive Information > Profanity, abusive language and hate speech). Users cannot damage human dignity, incite violence against a specific group or promote discrimination or prejudice by questioning a user’s characteristics, including their place of origin, race, appearance, disability, gender and/or sexual identity.

Sharing obscene information and information on extreme bodily exposure and sexual activities in the Open Chatroom is a violation of the Operation Policy(Objectionable or Sensitive Information > Information on Excessive Body Exposure and Sexual Activity). Soliciting, suggesting and enticing prostitution or paid sexual encounters, requesting photos of certain parts of the body, engaging or requesting sexual conversations against the other person’s will and requesting meetings for sexual favors are prohibited in order to protect users(User Safety > Sexual Offenses Against Adults).

Kakao has developed and implemented a policy to protect children・youth from sexual offensesopen a new window when using the service, and has a zero tolerance policy against sexual offenses aimed at children and youth. Grooming of children and youth, prostitution of children and youth, requesting or proposing to trade photos or videos of children or youngster’s bodies or them involved in sexual activity, sharing comments, images or videos that sexualize children or youth, conspiring, or making comments or actions that describe sexual crime against children or youth are all violations of the policy to protect children・youth from sexual offenses (User Safety > Sexual Offenses Against Children and Juveniles).

KakaoTalk prohibits the transmission of advertising information for commercial purposes to provide a safe and reliable service (Ensure Stability and Reliability > Transmit Advertising Information for Commercial Purposes), and enforces strict measures against the use and/or sales of prohibited abnormal programs(Ensure Stability and Reliability > Service Usage in a Way Not Permitted by KakaoTalk) and the trade of KakaoTalk accounts(Ensure Stability and Reliability > Steal, Trade, Transfer, Exchange Accounts Etc.).

General promotional activities may only lead to a temporary service restriction of the Open Chat service. However, corporate-type spams that use multiple accounts to send similar or identical messages may result in an immediate permanent or temporary service restriction of all KakaoTalk services.

Manipulating the platform by using multiple accounts that were created for the purpose of abusing the service to increase the number of chatroom participants or likes, abusing KakaoTalk by promoting illegal marketing, and attempting to trade a Kakao Account or an Open Chatroom are all activities that interfere with the normal operations of the service. Any user who conducts such activities may be immediately and permanently restricted from using all KakaoTalk services.

Open Chat supports communication between unfamiliar people who have shared interests. However, there have been confirmed cases where open links have been created to conduct financial fraud, money extortion and other activities that go against the purpose of the service.

Sextortion, romance scams, impersonating experts, investment fraud, proxy betting fraud, side hustle scams, digital item or goods transaction scams, employment fraud or impersonating financial institutions to obtain personal information are just some of the frauds and impersonations that have been detected.

Kakao considers fraud and impersonations in Open Chat to be a serious issue and immediately and permanently restricts the use of the entire KakaoTalk service when a user is confirmed to have conducted fraud or impersonation activities. As part of Kakao’s efforts to protect users, users’ reports and complaints are utilized to continuously analyze various fraud and impersonation patterns, and to prepare guidelines which are used to respond to such frauds and impersonations (User Safety > Criminal Acts and Conspiracy).

However, fraud and impersonation patterns continue to evolve, and there are cases where it is difficult to identify frauds and impersonations with reports alone. Additional measures, including the Fraud⋅Impersonation Reportopen a new window inquiry channel or requests from external agencies, such as the Korean National Police Agency, are implemented in these complex instances.

Users are prohibited from gambling from within Open Chatrooms or from promoting gambling websites or services. Any user who is reported and confirmed to have conducted gambling-related activities will be immediately and permanently restricted from using all KakaoTalk services(User Safety > Criminal Acts and Conspiracy).

KakaoTalk cannot be used to sell or provide services for illegal products or services that are prohibited by law, products that are prohibited from being sold online, products or services that violate other people’s intellectual property rights, and products or services that can go against good morals and other social order(Content Related to Illegal or Restricted Products and Services > Illegal and Restricted Products and Services Etc.). Users are also prohibited from selling or providing services for products or services that can harm children and youth, and thus are prohibited in Open Chat(Content Related to Illegal or Restricted Products and Services > Products and Services Harmful to Juveniles).

Kakao considers the protection of users’ personal information to be an important responsibility and prohibits the unauthorized collection or distribution of others’ personal information(User Safety > Violation of Privacy Protection).

Distributing another person’s contact information or personal information for the purpose of harassing the person, attempting to collect or trade personal information to use others’ personal information to sign-up to, or use, a service, or distributing contacts without the individual’s consent, even if it is to share information, are all violations of policies and may restrict the violating user from using the service.

How quickly were measures imposed on contents reported in Open Chats, Boards and Voicerooms?

Reported contents are quickly reviewed and handled by expert reviewers and our Automated Monitoring System. Kakao continues to make improvements to the system to quickly take action against accounts that violate policies and monitors the influx of reports to allocate the adequate number of operational staff. However, processing time may increase if there is an unexpected inflow of reports.

How many accounts were restricted from Open Chat covers, Open Profiles and Open Profile posts because they were reported or detected by the system?

Contents that are detected through reports submitted by users or by machine learning are reviewed by the reviewer and system, and in cases of light offenses, are simply hidden from Open Chat or KakaoTalk search results. However, if the reported contents are harmful to children and youth, have explicit indecent intent, or are obviously illegal, various measures are implemented, such as restricting the content creator from using the service, hiding the content in question from view and restricting the use of the chatroom.

The above data contains information on the number of accounts that have been restricted from using the entire KakaoTalk service or the Open Chat service, as well as the number of accounts that have been restricted from using contents, including those who have been restricted from being searched or displayed or been imposed with the chatroom service restrictions.

Why were accounts restricted from Open Chat covers, Open Profiles and Open Profile posts?

Posting obscene information, as well as information on extreme bodily exposure and sexual activities in the Open Chatroom’s public content area is a violation of the Operation Policy(Objectionable or Sensitive Information > Information on Excessive Body Exposure and Sexual Activity). In addition, contents that explicitly contain, or is suspected of containing malicious intents, such as contents on meetings or chats of a sexual nature, meetings or chats for the purpose of providing monetary or conveniences or sponsorship, can be restricted from being displayed on the Open Chat home search results and accounts that post such contents can be restricted from using the Open Chat service(User Safety > Sexual Offenses Against Adults).

Kakao has developed and implemented a policy to protect children・youth from sexual offensesopen a new window when using the service, and has a zero tolerance policy against sexual offenses aimed at children and youth. Since KakaoTalk is a messenger service that is used freely by underaged users, Kakao takes the safety of children and youth seriously, and strictly manages the service so that chatrooms that has a risk of exposing children and youth to sexual offenses are not displayed in the Open Chat search result(User Safety > Sexual Offenses Against Children and Juveniles). Various measures are currently being applied, such as restricting chatrooms on meetings, chats, sponsorships between adults and children or youth, chatrooms on job postings recruiting children and youth that may lead to their kidnapping or entrapment, and chatrooms on purchasing or making payments for products that cannot be purchased by children or youth, from being shown on search results, including Open Chat search results, restricting content creators from using the service if their contents explicitly have, or suspected of having, malicious content, hiding their contents from the service or restricting them from using the chatroom.

Sharing information on violence, cruelty, hatred and animal abuse in Open Chat’s public contents areas are all considered a violation of the Operation Policy(Objectionable or Sensitive Information > Violent or Disgusting Information). Even if the purpose is to share information, sharing information, such as photos or videos that did not blur out violent images of an accident, can be a violation of policies and may lead to a service restriction.

In addition, the use of profanity and vulgar language that may cause discomfort to others as well as acts of extreme verbal violence against specific groups based on discriminatory perceptions are prohibited(Objectionable or Sensitive Information > Profanity, abusing language and hate speech). Users cannot damage human dignity, incite violence against a specific group or promote discrimination or prejudice by questioning a user’s characteristics, including their place of origin, race, appearance, disability, gender and/or sexual identity.

Kakao prohibits KakaoTalk from being used as a media or communication tool for gambling activities, or to promote gambling websites or services. If an Open Chatroom is opened and operated for the purpose of posting gambling contents or for gambling activities, the admin account of that Open Chatroom will be immediately and permanently restricted from using all KakaoTalk services (User Safety > Criminal Acts and Conspiracy).

KakaoTalk cannot be used to sell or provide services for illegal products or services that are prohibited by law, products that are prohibited from being sold online, products or services that violate other people’s intellectual property rights, and products or services that can go against good morals and other social order(Content Related to Illegal or Restricted Products and Services > Illegal and Restricted Products and Services Etc.). Users are also prohibited from selling or providing services for products or services that can harm children and youth, and thus are prohibited in Open Chat(Content Related to Illegal or Restricted Products and Services > Products and Services Harmful to Juveniles).

KakaoTalk enforces strict measures against the use and/or sales of unauthorized and abnormal programs(Ensure Stability and Reliability > Service Usage in a Way Not Permitted by KakaoTalk), as well as the trade of KakaoTalk accounts(Ensure Stability and Reliability > Steal, Trade, Transfer, Exchange Accounts Etc.). Manipulating the platform by using fake accounts to increase the number of chatroom participants or likes, abusing KakaoTalk by promoting illegal marketing, and attempting to trade an Open Chatroom are all activities that interfere with the normal operations of the service. Any user who conducts such activities may be immediately and permanently restricted from using all KakaoTalk services.

Kakao considers the protection of users’ personal information to be an important responsibility and prohibits the unauthorized collection or distribution of others’ personal information(User Safety > Violation of Privacy Protection).

Any personal information that is displayed in an Open Chatroom’s public content area can be hidden to protect the exposed personal information. Open Chatrooms that were created with the intent to illegally collect and/or distribute others’ personal information can be restricted from use.

Open Chat supports communication between unfamiliar people who have shared interests. However, there have been confirmed cases where open links have been created to conduct financial fraud, money extortion and other activities that go against the purpose of the service.

Kakao considers fraud and impersonations in Open Chat to be a serious issue and immediately and permanently restricts the use of all KakaoTalk services when fraud or impersonation activities are confirmed. As part of Kakao’s efforts to protect users, users’ reports and complaints are utilized to continuously analyze various fraud and impersonation patterns, and to prepare guidelines which are used to respond to such frauds and impersonations (User Safety > Criminal Acts and Conspiracy).

However, fraud and impersonation patterns continue to evolve, and there are cases where it is difficult to identify frauds and impersonations with information from Open Chat covers and Open Profile information alone. Additional measures, including the Fraud⋅Impersonation Reportopen a new window inquiry channel or requests from external agencies, such as the Korean National Police Agency, are implemented in these complex instances.

How many harmful contents in Open Chat covers, Open Profiles and Open Profile posts were imposed with restrictive measures before it was reported by users or detected by the system?

Open Chatroom’s public contents are strictly managed by user reports and machine learning, which detects and filters contents that need to be reviewed by the reviewer, to ensure that harmful information is not displayed in Open Chat search results.

Proactive rate is the ratio of contents that were detected by Kakao and had restriction measures imposed before the violating contents were reported by users. The proactive rate may be impacted if reports on private contents increase, since Open Chatrooms or Open Profile posts that users do not allow to be searched are excluded from machine learning’s detections and can only be reviewed once it is reported.

How quickly were measures imposed on contents in Open Chat covers, Open Profiles and Open Profile posts that were reported by users or detected by the system?

Reported contents are quickly reviewed and handled by expert reviewers and our Automated Monitoring System. Kakao continues to make improvements to the system to quickly take action against users who violate policies and monitors newly created and edited reports and contents to allocate the adequate number of operational staff. However, processing time may increase if there is an unexpected inflow of reports.