Starship Entertainment Shares Update On Legal Action Against Malicious Comments + Gives Follow-Up Regarding MONSTA X

Nov 02, 2020

Starship Entertainment has provided an update detailing their legal action regarding malicious comments and more.

The statement explains the measures they took last December when they released their previous update and shares how they will be moving forward, especially with regards to protecting MONSTA X.

The statement reads as follows:

Hello. This is Starship Entertainment.

Beginning in 2019, we appointed law firms Sejong and Ius&Lex to file our third round of criminal complaints to protect against malicious comments, including the spread of false information, online slander, and defamation. The punishment for some cases has come to an end through the sentencing of fines. In some cases of systematic, persistent, and malicious commenters, we are continuing to take an unprecedented response at the civil law level by claiming compensation for damages.

With the recent comeback of our agency’s artist MONSTA X, we’ve received numerous reports from fans about persistent malicious commenters and malicious rumors being spread. We have currently requested strong legal action through our law firm against all legally punishable acts, including the spread of false information, defamation, and sexual harassment, even in cases where nicknames are difficult to identify. This includes shared nicknames on communities (users who are not logged in), which have been considered blind spots for malicious comments until recently. We have confirmed once again that if there is an illegal act now, it will only be a matter of time before we find out [the identity] through community servers or archives. We also state again that we will be taking agency-wide legal action against sexual harassment online and on social media by tracking based on the evidence we have so far.

Additionally, we will do everything we can to take appropriate follow-up measures and legal action to protect the rights of our artists by monitoring comments that violate the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, etc. This includes crimes of defamation, insults, malicious slander, and the deliberate spread of false information.

In the future, we ask that fans continue to send reports. Once again, we want to deeply thank everyone sending support to the agency and our artists.

Thank you.