SBS issued an official apology regarding the SNS hashtag controversy.
On the 22nd, SBS said in an official statement, "We confirmed that inappropriate words were included in automatically generated hashtags on some of the above SNS posts and have deleted those hashtags," and "We will be more careful in managing hashtags. We apologize."
Earlier, on the 20th, SBS issued an official apology regarding the 2018 broadcast of It's Known, in the episode "Power and organized crime — one year after the Pattaya murder case." Regarding the organized crime involvement allegations against President Lee Jae-myung raised in that broadcast, it said, "It has been confirmed that this is not legally true," and "We apologize for raising allegations without solid evidence."
This was a follow-up action after President Lee Jae-myung raised the issue the same day by mentioning the broadcast on his SNS. The president strongly criticized, "I wonder whether It's Known will do follow-up reporting," and "Because of this broadcast, I was even driven to being labeled a 'murder gangster.'"
Later, SBS News posted the apology on SNS and included hashtags such as "allegation," "president," "Lee Jae-myung," "murder," "defense counsel," and "Supreme Court."
In particular, criticism arose that including words like "murder" was inconsistent with the intent of the apology, and as the controversy spread the post was deleted. However, captured images circulated on online communities and SNS, and some netizens criticized, "Isn't this an insincere apology?" and "It looks like a battle of wills."
As the controversy escalated, SBS ultimately conveyed an apology through an official statement.
[Photo] SBS It's Known
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