By September of this year, the government made over 5,000 correction requests related to drug distribution information on online platforms. It has been particularly increasing on platforms like Google and Meta.
According to data received by Park Chung-kwon, a member of the National Assembly’s Science, Technology, Information, and Broadcasting & Communications Committee from the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC), the KCSC requested 5,442 corrections from online platform operators this year from January to September related to domestic drug distribution information.
The correction requests by KCSC were 2,131 cases in 2019, 3,569 in 2020, 7,144 in 2021, 15,502 in 2022, and 14,045 in 2023.
While the total number of correction requests is expected to be similar to or less than last year, there is an increasing trend on specific platforms.
Looking at the platform-specific correction requests related to drug trade information from January to September, X (formerly Twitter) had the most with 3,380 cases, followed by Tumblr with 1,330 cases.
Naver and Kakao each had 1 case, Google had 46 cases, YouTube 3 cases, Facebook 627 cases, and Instagram 54 cases.
Notably, Google saw more than a threefold increase from 14 cases last year, YouTube had 3 cases despite having none from 2021 to 2023, Facebook surged nearly twelvefold from 53 cases last year, and Instagram increased more than fourfold from 12 cases.
These platforms generally used terms like “bud,” “stick,” “liquid ecstasy,” “methamphetamine,” and “hallucinogen sale” to advertise the trade of drugs such as methamphetamine, GHB, zolpidem, pentobarbital (these are psychoactive drugs), cannabis, or temporary drugs like Rush, and many posted contact information and transaction methods.
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