Starship Entertainment is at the center of a controversy after sharing an inappropriate post of IVE on the company's official Weibo account.
The post in question contained a deepfake image with inappropriate sexual content and sparked outrage among fans.
In response to the growing criticism, Starship Entertainment issued an official apology. The company clarified that the incident happened when an employee, attempting to report the malicious post, accidentally shared it instead.
They wrote:
"Hello, this is Starship Entertainment.
We would like to address the post that was uploaded on Starship Entertainment’s Weibo today.
This incident occurred during the process of reporting a malicious post, and the post has since been deleted.
We sincerely apologize to the artist and the fans who may have been upset by this post.
We will pay more attention to account management to ensure that such errors do not happen again.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Once again, we are very sorry."
However, netizens are not acceptive of the company's statement due to the features on Weibo. Weibo requires users to press multiple buttons to report a post and is located on the opposite side of the "share" button. Therefore, many netizens are doubting the incident could be a simple mistake.
Korean netizens responded:
"They really need to fire that employee—it’s ridiculous."
"There’s no acknowledgment, no accountability, and all they’ve offered is lies and excuses." "There isn’t even an apology that addresses the actual issue."
"The report button and repost button are in completely different locations—what nonsense are they saying?"
"The placement of the report button and the repost button is entirely different, so their excuse is laughable."
"Was the person in charge of the Chinese account messing around? LOL"
"The company should check what kind of accounts their social media managers are using."
"The Weibo manager is definitely suspicious."
"Seriously, working in the entertainment industry and mishandling a deepfake issue like this... It’s unacceptable. They should be fired immediately. There’s no sense of ethics and no respect for people."
"Is it right to bring up unrelated issues to mock the person involved in the incident?"
"That employee absolutely needs to be fired. How is it okay for an official account to handle a deepfake like that? There are already so many crazy people making comments with deepfakes—why is there no punishment for that?"
"That employee has to go—how can anyone feel safe working with someone like that?"
"The manager must be an 'akgae' (a toxic fan of one member who dislikes others). They need to release a proper apology and fire them quickly."
"It seems like the employee needs to be let go."
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