Fake news channel case regarding Lee Kang-in existing on YouTube. Courtesy of filer
361 fake news about Lee Kang-in, who was at the center of the "table tennis gate" after there was reported friction within the South Korean national team ahead of the semifinal match against Jordan at the 2023 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Qatar Asian Cup, was produced and distributed on YouTube, leaving about 700 million won in profits.
According to "Filer," an artificial intelligence (AI) company that analyzes the context of video content on the 3rd, a total of 361 videos and 195 channels were identified as fake news content related to Lee Kang-in from February 14th to 27th, when the issue was known, and advertisements were blocked.
The total number of views of the videos was 69.48,099 times, and Filer estimated that "based on the number of views, about 700 million won would have been generated."
The fake news video consisted of provocative titles and thumbnails such as "Evidence of Lee Kang-in's intentional assault: Clinsman, Son Heung-min's beating, revealing everything, Lee Kang-in, Son Heung-min's hand breaking video," "Now Lee Kang-in's uniform is not for sale... imminent release of PSG, undisclosed dogmatic scene vs. shock, end of life for the national team," and "Lee Kang-in's family company's aerial decomposition crisis when he was exposed during the third subversion."
On the YouTube channel, which has about 60,000 subscribers, posted a video titled "Lee Kang-in's contract of 28 billion won has been terminated and PSG Seoul Store has been completely suspended! Angry owner Lee Kang-in goes to the second division!" on the 19th of last month.
In the video, a reporter said, "The PSG owner made a shocking judgment. I ordered him not to play in the first division anymore with the image of Lee Kang-in, who fell," and said, "PSG is also considering Lee Kang-in's future," which was unfounded fake news.
Despite the false facts, the video has been viewed more than 500,000 times after uploading, and advertisements are exposed in the video and are making profits.
The channel that uploaded the video has created 21 soccer-related video contents by the 28th of last month and has about 3.13 million views.
Filer said, "When we checked the YouTube profit forecast calculator, the channel is expected to have benefited from at least 14 million won to 32 million won in the last 30 days."
"There are increasing cases of continuously producing and distributing provocative issues or fake news on overseas platforms in regulatory blind spots," he said. "Due to the nature of YouTube advertisements, advertisers cannot check what kind of page advertisements are exposed to. Therefore, AI ad-tech solutions should be used to block inappropriate advertisement exposure and sponsorship structure for fake news creators."