It has been found that comments in the political category registered on Naver News during the official campaign period for the 21st presidential election decreased by more than 60% compared to the 20th presidential election.
According to the Naver Data Lab news comment statistics on the 4th, a total of 3,315,747 political comments were registered from the official campaign period of the 21st presidential election, which ran from the 12th of last month to the 2nd of this month.
This figure is a decrease of 5,382,487 comments (61.9%) compared to the 8,698,234 political comments registered during the campaign period for the 20th presidential election (Feb. 15 to Mar. 8, 2022).
Cases where authors deleted comments themselves or did not comply with comment regulations also significantly decreased.
The number of political comments deleted by authors during the campaign period for the 21st presidential election was 270,840, a decrease of 549,421 compared to the previous election.
Instances of not adhering to comment regulations decreased from 23,732 (20th presidential election) to 2,439.
Earlier, Naver displayed the phrase 'use restriction' on the profiles of users whose comment usage was limited in 2023, and established a procedure requiring users to solve a quiz to lift the restriction.
Last year, in preparation for the 22nd National Assembly elections, measures were taken to strengthen the reporting function for news comments to prevent the spread of false information related to the election.
Currently, Naver News users are limited to 20 comments per article and 40 replies within 24 hours.