The year 2007 was a time when the number of celebrity suicides peaked as a result of hateful comments and verbal attacks online. The incidents deeply penetrated into the overall society and people began to realize the power of online verbal abuse. Shocked by this phenomenon, some Yonsei University students felt the need to establish an upright online culture. This is how Cizion, a social enterprise to eradicate malicious comments, was established.
Cizion is the first Information Technology (IT) social enterprise in Korea to be established. Also, the most well-known service of Cizion, “LiveRe,” is the first Asian comment platform that can be installed on media or corporate websites.
It allows Internet users to make comments on posts after logging in with an existing ID of another Social Network Service (SNS). This works to prevent abusive comments by exposing the commenters’ SNS IDs to the public, alarming the commenters to be more careful when writing posts. Moreover, as soon as a comment is posted, the user can share the post on SNS, sharing it with their friends.
Currently, there are two types of “LiveRe”; the free version “City” and the charged version “Premium.” “City” is open to anyone especially aimed for individual bloggers or small and medium businesses, whereas “Premium” is optimized for enterprises and offers more functions such as changing its design.
“As a student who majored in Communication, I have considered the importance of culture in the newly emerging online media,” said Kim Mi-kyun, the founder of Cizion. “Since there was no official organization that regulates the order of the Internet, I wanted Cizion to be a place that helps to diminish abusive comments.”
The process of achieving such goal was not easy at first. Cizion members first came up with a debate chatting program. However, through market research, they found out that the core problem was not the format of chatting, but the contents of the comments. The next attempt was establishing a filtering system in which abusive language was changed to asterisks or other words. However, people still delivered the similar meaning by avoiding the use of direct abusive language.
All these experiences finally led the members to think of a way in which Internet users can make comments with responsibility. As a result, they realized that when the comments are shown to their friends, they tend to be more careful, which eventually led to the emergence of “LiveRe.”
The “LiveRe” is currently used by more than 1,000 institutions including government organizations, the press, and corporations. For those websites that employ “LiveRe,” the number of hateful comments has decreased, online contents have spread, and visitors and comments on the websites have increased. For example, the visitors of online shopping malls and the press increased by five times and abusive comments decreased after installing “LiveRe.” This clearly shows the effectiveness of the service.
Cizion does not confine its work to “LiveRe,” but fulfills its duty as a social enterprise as well. Cizion has been cooperating with Sunfull, a Korean non-profit organization that promotes a commenting campaign that remembers the victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and Sewol Ferry incident. Moreover, it provides jobs for people with disabilities as monitors.
With the success of “LiveRe” in Korea, Cizion is now trying to enter the global market. Although Cizion has already received investment from the American enterprises and is continuing its global service, it is putting effort to offer more localized services in foreign countries.
“Our ultimate goal is to become the biggest Asian communication platform enterprise,” Kim said. “In addition, I would like to point out that it is important to know the definition of hateful comments, which are considered to be highly aggressive and are not simply restricted to abusive words. Students have to be aware that the comments they make online reflect their personality. I hope they acknowledge the fact that a responsible communication culture makes a better online environment for all.”