Safety Report/Enforcement
Open Chat
Kakao always supports users’ freedom of expression and hopes that KakaoTalk Open Chat serves as a space where users can freely share opinions and discuss shared interests through open and diverse connections.
Unlike KakaoTalk’s General Chat, which is a friends-based service, Open Chat is a service that everyone can view or join, and therefore, are operated under stricter standards to protect users’ safety and prevent the distribution of harmful information. Since the service is also open to children and youth, KakaoTalk is making strenuous efforts to make sure no information that is harmful to children or youth is displayed in the public area.
Like KakaoTalk’s General Chat, Kakao does not view Open Chat’s private contents (messages and contents in the chatroom) in order to protect users’ privacy, If a user uses the service’s “Report” feature to report a problematic message or content, we determine whether the reported message or content violates any related laws, terms or Operation Policy provisions and impose any necessary service restrictions.
However, since content in the public domain (e.g., Open Chat covers, profiles, posts) is visible to general users and can be accessed by anyone, it is necessary to manage it to prevent illegal or harmful information from being displayed in Open Chat search results, especially information that is harmful to children and juveniles.
Therefore, to protect users, a database of prohibited keywords that contain unhealthy, illegal, or harmful information, or words that can potentially harm users, has been developed in Open Chat to prevent any harmful information from being displayed in search results.
In the case of contents in public areas, user reports are used alongside machine learning, which automatically detects contents that need to be reviewed. These contents are reviewed by the reviewer and processed with the appropriate measures.
This report contains data on measures that were taken on Open Chats, Open Chat boards, Open Chat Voicerooms, Open Chat covers, Open Profiles, and the Open Profile post areas.
Summary
In the first half of 2025, approximately 555K accounts were subject to service restrictions in Open Chat. This is a 0.8% decrease from the previous period.
Private ContentMore than 351K accounts faced service restrictions in private content that is distributed in chatrooms (e.g., messages, boards, voice rooms), reflecting a 2.0% increase from the previous period.
The breakdown of service restriction reasons is as follows:
- Profanity (e.g., hate speech, violence, discrimination): 44.1% (largest category)
- Obscene & Sexual Behavior (e.g., pornography): 24.0%
- Illegal Spam & Interference with Service Operation: 23.5%
- Illegal Products & Services: 2.7%
- Investment Advisory and Related Activities: 2.6%
- Scams & Impersonation: 2.6%
- Unauthorized Collection and Distribution of Others' Personal Information: 0.6%.
The number of accounts restricted due to Profanity (e.g., hate speech, violence, discrimination) increased by 14.9% from the previous period. The increase in restricted accounts is due to a rise in related reports, which has been driven by social issues that have persisted since the end of last year.
The number of accounts restricted due to Investment Advisory and Related Activities decreased by 13.8% from the previous period. This decline is associated with the gradual decrease in this type of activities since restrictions on illegal investment advisory practices, including illegal stock-tipping chatrooms, were tightened in the second half of 2024.
The number of accounts restricted due to Scams and Impersonation increased by 41.1% from the previous period. In Open Chat, scams and identity theft cases, such as romance scams, still account for the largest proportion. This year, there has been an increase in cases involving scams that use predictions of winning lotto numbers as bait. Also, the number of cases of restricting job scams related to writing fake reviews for online shopping malls increased rapidly between April and May. This type of scam operates by sending fraudulent job-related messages and is characterized as a spam-type fraud
Public ContentMore than 204K accounts faced service restrictions in public content (e.g., Open Chat covers, profiles, posts), a 5.2% decrease from the previous period.
The breakdown of service restriction reasons is as follows:
- Obscene & Sexual Behavior (e.g., pornography): 60.9% (largest category)
- Profanity (e.g., hate speech, violence, discrimination): 31.5%
- Other: 7.6%.
The number of accounts restricted due to Obscene & Sexual Behavior (e.g., pornography) decreased by 10.5% from the previous period. It has been confirmed that a certain level of decrease has been maintained, as policies and the monitoring system have been operating stably without any specific external factors.
The number of accounts restricted due to Scams and Impersonation increased by 18% from the previous period. This increase is influenced by a rise in the number of cases in which chatrooms created for romance scams were restricted.
The Open Chat indicators in the first half of 2025 show that the proportion of restricted cases related to community safety, such as Profanity & Discrimination and Scams & Impersonation, has increased, even as the overall number of restricted cases has slightly decreased. In particular, certain malicious practices have temporarily increased depending on seasonal factors and social issues. In response, Kakao continuously strives to advance reporting classification, reinforce keyword detection, and improve the logic used to identify suspicious accounts.
Kakao consistently analyzes risks based on Open Chatroom cover creation data and content type—continuing to strengthen standards for prohibited search terms and detailed regulations to minimize exposure to harmful content. Through these measures, Kakao continues to pursue improvements to ensure that users are provided with a safer and more trustworthy Open Chat environment.
Private Content
Private contents are contents distributed in chatrooms and pertains to Open Chats, Open Chat boards and Open Chat Voicerooms. To protect users’ privacy, measures against these contents are enforced when reports are submitted.
How many accounts were restricted from Open Chats, Boards and Voicerooms because they were reported?
| Period | Accounts |
|---|---|
| Jan - Jun 2024 | 303,448 |
| Jul - Dec 2024 | 344,595 |
| Jan - Jun 2025 | 351,515 |
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?
| Reason | Accounts |
|---|---|
| Profanity, Hate Speech, Violence & Hatred | 154,897 |
| Obscene・Sexual Behavior | 84,214 |
| Spam & Platform Manipulation | 82,547 |
| Investment Advising, etc. | 9,062 |
| Illegal Goods & Services | 8,909 |
| Fraud & Impersonation | 9,191 |
| Private Information | 2,014 |
For details on each policy, please click the button next to it.
How quickly were measures imposed on contents reported in Open Chats, Boards and Voicerooms?
| Time | Ratio |
|---|---|
| Within 1 hour | 98.6% |
| Within 1–4 hours | 0.9% |
| Within 4–8 hours | 0.2% |
| More than 8 hours | 0.3% |
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.
Public Content
Public content refers to content visible to general users and accessible by anyone — namely Open Chat covers, Open Profiles, and Open Profile posts. In addition to user reports, machine learning detects content that requires review and routes it to operators, strictly managing public content so that harmful information does not appear in Open Chat search results.
How many accounts in Open Chat covers, Open Profiles, and Open Profile posts were restricted based on user reports or system detection?
| Period | Accounts |
|---|---|
| Jan - Jun 2024 | 219,800 |
| Jul - Dec 2024 | 215,207 |
| Jan - Jun 2025 | 204,024 |
Contents that are detected through user reports and other monitoring methods are reviewed by both human moderators and automated systems. In cases of minor violations, the content may simply be 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?
| Reason | Accounts |
|---|---|
| Obscene・Sexual Behavior | 124,214 |
| Profanity, Hate Speech, Violence & Hatred | 64,273 |
| Illegal Goods & Services | 11,081 |
| Private Information | 2,033 |
| Service Disruption | 753 |
| Fraud & Impersonation | 1,394 |
| Investment Advising, etc. | 276 |
For details on each policy, please click the button next to it.
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?
| Category | Ratio |
|---|---|
| Action before report | 95% |
| Action after report | 5% |
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 not subject to detection and can only be reviewed once it is reported.
How quickly was reported or system-detected content in Open Chat covers, Open Profiles, and Open Profile posts handled?
| Time | Ratio |
|---|---|
| Within 1 hour | 71.1% |
| Within 1–4 hours | 4.8% |
| Within 4–8 hours | 6.6% |
| More than 8 hours | 17.5% |
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.