South Korea’s broadcasting and media review committee plans to begin formally reviewing artificial intelligence chat services in November after asking 15 operators to strengthen protections for minors. The committee made the request at a cooperation meeting with the companies in Seoul on October 21, where participants discussed sexually suggestive material available through AI chat platforms.
The committee said its monitoring identified character images with excessive exposure of sexual body parts, as well as profiles, tags and scenario descriptions that evoked sexual acts or portrayed women as sexual objects. It also found cases in which an AI system responded to suggestive user prompts by generating descriptions of nudity or sexual activity.
Operators were asked to improve systems for detecting and blocking illegal or harmful information at both the user-input and AI-output stages. The committee also called for stronger reporting channels so users can flag problematic content and service providers can respond more effectively.
Age controls and content separation face scrutiny
The requested measures focus particularly on separating material available to minors from adult content. Adult material should carry youth-harmful content labels, the committee said, while access controls based on identity verification should be checked regularly to determine whether users can defeat them through alternative connections or other workarounds.
The review could directly affect young users, parents and operators of character-based AI chat services. Stronger filtering may reduce minors’ exposure to sexualized images and generated dialogue, but providers will also need to assess content classifications, moderation tools, identity checks and complaint procedures. Participating companies agreed that additional safeguards were needed while also raising the operational difficulties faced by startup businesses.
- Cooperation meeting
- October 21 in Seoul
- Formal review
- Planned for November
- Review focus
- Harmful-content controls and restrictions on access by minors
Before starting the November review, the committee plans to examine the companies’ views, the harmful-content risks associated with individual services and the status of restrictions on access by minors. Those findings will shape scrutiny of whether each platform’s protections adequately distinguish youth-accessible services from adult offerings and prevent age controls from being bypassed.