Wattpad Banning Private Messaging

Telecommunications Act

Hello everybody, yes I haven't written in a few hours (and I have something very important to say so like...it's infuriating)

So there is something like a FCC in Korea, it's called the KCC 

And there's an act in the that could help us, help us a lot 

It's in Korean so I'll just translate it and paste it here, then show my key points of it

The Korea Communications Commission (Chairman Lee Dong-gwan, hereinafter referred to as the "Korea Communications Commission") announced that it will begin a fact-finding investigation on September 25 (Monday) to confirm Naver News Service's violations of prohibited activities under the Telecommunications Business Act.

Since July 5, the Korea Communications Commission has been conducting a status inspection on Naver's news service to determine whether it violates the Telecommunications Business Act.

As a result of the fact-finding inspection, it was determined that Naver may have violated the prohibited acts regulations by

▲unfair discrimination against specific users

▲Unreasonable imposition of unreasonable conditions or restrictions

▲failure to notify important matters, etc.

Accordingly, a factual investigation including an on-site investigation into Naver was conducted. has started.Naver is Korea's largest search portal operator and has a significant impact on the media environment.

In particular, it has monopolistic market dominance with a news market share of 66.7%, and there has been ongoing controversy over its social responsibility and fairness.

In particular, the news algorithm has been pointed out as a cause of the phenomenon of bias toward specific media companies as it is directly related to the issue of media companies' involvement in the arrangement of articles.

And as the problems of discrimination against business operators and distortion of public opinion have been pointed out, a fact-finding inspection has been launched.

As a result of the factual investigation, if Naver News Service artificially intervened in search results and provided services in a discriminatory manner to media outlets, etc., this could be considered a serious violation of prohibited acts under the Telecommunications Business Act.

Through this factual investigation, the Korea Communications Commission plans to clarify whether Naver's actions are prohibited under the Telecommunications Business Act.

If violations are confirmed, the maximum fine will be imposed according to the law (1/100 of the relevant sales).

We plan to take strict and decisive action, including criminal charges.Meanwhile, the Korea Communications Commission has issued a stern warning to Naver for its response to delayed or non-submission of investigation data during the fact-finding inspection, and plans to take possible legal action, including the imposition of enforcement fines, if investigation obstruction continues during the fact-finding process in the future.

In the future, the Korea Communications Commission plans to actively work to ease regulations to strengthen the competitiveness of the broadcasting and communications industry, while ensuring users' rights and interests and creating a fair media environment through strict law enforcement against illegal activities. end.

Many of you might've just zoomed past that like- 'nope, too much reading'...some may have taken their time to read and try to understand. 

I had to read this over just to understand it so I could explain it to the zoomers or even the people who read and still don't understand 

Ok, so firstly we need to know what this act is 

The purpose of this Act is to ensure the smooth provision of telecommunications services, and the interests of the users of those services are protected, through ensuring the proper and reasonable operation of telecommunications services and promoting fair competition in consideration of the public nature of ...

That is searched up (took me a while to find): so I'll summarize

It's supposed to keep users (like us) protected, such as the ways we use them and what we want. Which NAVER had violated

NAVER sets an example of what's going to happen to wattpad. In case if you didn't read, this violation leads to a 1/100 percent taking out of how much wattpad makes 

May not sound like a lot but Wattpad makes thousands, they pay their top writers $25000 for just compensation 

& NAVER had bought Wattpad for $600 million dollars. Wattpad is expensive 

Lemme show you an example 

If Wattpad made 2.4 million dollars yearly, the KCC would take $24000 from them yearly...may not be a lot but it's still taking from wp's salary

Also that many of the things NAVER violated is the many things that wattpad did.

Unfair discrimination against specific users.

Wattpad banned a user from their account for no reason, not stating why at all to just: only because they were helping the cause

They had suspended a user from their account for 'continuous spamming' and yet didn't do it to anyone else. Didn't do it to anyone who spammed much more than them, they sent it to a few users.

Wanting to remove the petition links out from their books and ambassadors, saying, 'we have the right of our opinion but can't spam links'. They practically threatened us by saying we'll be investigated if links are sent out again

Unreasonable imposition of unreasonable conditions or restrictions

They had restricted us from our freedom of speech, freedom of expression (don't know if they have that in Korea) so lemme change that- they tried to SILENCE us, HIDE what we truly wanted, hide it from the news and articles + having an article side with them

The conditions of taking the pms away was CRAZY & UNREASONABLE, they deleted the pms fully, taking away a form of communication and memories. No one asked for that, many people HAD to take millions of screenshots to keep those memories- some couldn't 

Failure to notify important matters

They totally found the worse way to notify us about the pms, they had posted an article on the website, they had the link of it put straight onto the pms. That's a failure to notify important matters.

They don't notify users why or when they're going to take down their account or books, THEY JUST DO IT- that's something important that should notify users

And the etc...tell me your complaints, tell me what has happened to you that is unfair of Wattpad or a story of what has happened, how you feel; anything will work

I won't wattpad to see it. I want the FCC & the KCC to see our complaints, so I want you to message your complaint

Message it now but there is no later

We won't kill wattpad, we'll just ruin their reputation, ruin their money-making, ruin their social medias, and ruin the lives of everyone working at wattpad

Embarrassing them, shame them, disgrace them for what they've done.

We'll save those pms and everything else, surrendering has not and will never be an answer

No mercy.