(Image: National Forensic Service)
SEOUL, March 22 (Korea Bizwire) — The Korean celebrity sphere is struggling with fake news being spread on YouTube.
VAST Entertainment, the management company representing Hyun Bin, denied rumors spread on YouTube that the star actor and actress Son Ye-jin had divorced.
The video falsely claimed that Hyun lost 15 billion won (US$11.4 million) to gambling and that he reached a divorce settlement with Son.
The fake videos show amateurish editing of celebrity photos, with claims that raise high suspicion that they aren’t authentic.
The videos, however, typically garner tens of thousands of views in just one or two days. Some videos have reached more than 1.1 million views.
What’s more, numerous YouTube channels are posting videos with unconfirmed headlines of celebrities getting married, divorced, gambling, and acquiring debt.
The videos, however, cannot be taken down right away. Even if the videos are deleted, similar videos are reposted on different YouTube channels to continue the spread.
“There is no information about who runs these channels, so there is no way to contact the people responsible for this content. The only thing we can do is to strongly ask them to take down the videos by leaving a comment,” an industry official said.
“We also ask YouTube to take down these videos, but the process is long and complicated, which only adds to our frustration.”
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
