Celebrities take action to prevent damage caused by online impersonation crimes[Editorial]

Comedian Hwang Hyun-hee speaks during a press conference to call for the resolution of online phishing crimes involving celebrity impersonation at a press center in Jung-gu, Seoul, Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2018. Yonhap News Agency

Comedians Song Eun-yi and Hwang Hyun-hee, YouTuber and lecturer Kim Mi-kyung, and financiers John Lee and Joo Jin-hyung held a press conference on March 22 to call for the prevention of online phishing crimes impersonating celebrities. They said that they decided to take action because they could no longer watch the victims, who lost their retirement funds and money saved by part-time jobs, let alone their name being stolen by crime and their image being tarnished. They said that they reported to online platform companies and the police several times but to no avail, so they held the press conference.

Recently, there have been a lot of posts on social media about celebrities establishing information exchange groups about stock. If you click on the links below the posts, you will be directed to “illegal stock analysis rooms” opened on various messaging apps, including Naver Band, Kakao Open Chat, and Telegram. For instance, comedian Hwang Hyun-hee said, "When I entered a stock analysis room opened under my name and said, 'Hello, I'm Hwang Hyun-hee,' and I was surprised as an impersonator replied by using my fad words to pretend to be myself." A lawyer at the press conference said that the amount of damage caused by celebrity impersonation cases filed with his law firm over the past six months alone amounted to 50 billion won.

The damage is snowballing, and the authorities and the National Assembly are inaction. In 2020, a bill to amend the Information and Communications Network Act to criminalize impersonation was proposed, but it is still pending in the National Assembly. This is because there are concerns that punishing impersonation alone before actual harm is proven is an overreach of punishment, but in this case, the problem is left unattended and unresolved until secondary damage occurs. Unlike suspected voice phishing accounts, there is no legal basis for suspending payments for bank accounts used in the illegal stock analysis room fraud under the current law. Online platform companies are also complacent. They do not have a dedicated impersonation fraud hotline, so the scams are reported by e-mail, and it takes three to four weeks to send an email report, verify the damage, and take action, and in the meantime, phishing groups create new accounts and send out more advertisements. The pleas from the fraud’s victims to the platform companies to "please create a dedicated team for the fraud" show there is not a moment to lose.

As non-face-to-face work increases and deepfake technology develops, online impersonation crimes can become more prevalent. Most of the victims who believed in celebrity impersonation advertisements and were scammed with illegal stock analysis room investment are said to be rookies who just started out a career and the elderly who lack financial knowledge. It is urgent to take measures by authorities and online platform companies to prevent blind spots under the current law. Users should also beware of advertisements on social media which encourage them to send money.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.