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In compliance with a request by the South Korean government, operators of the chat app Telegram erased 25 pieces of content considered to be illegal sexual exploitation material.

The Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) announced on Tuesday that Telegram had deleted all the relevant obscene content that the commission urgently requested be removed.

“Telegram communicated its apologies today, adding that its operators wish to build a relationship of trust with the commission,” the KCSC added. 

On Sunday, the KCSC compiled a list of 25 pieces of content that were determined to be top priority for deletion and sent an urgent request to Telegram to remove and delete the content.  

According to the KCSC, Telegram sent an email from its regional manager for Southeast Asia saying that the company had learned from media reports that South Korea was experiencing difficulties “with handling illicit content on our platform.”

The email reportedly characterized the current situation as very unfortunate, and offered an apology for any misunderstandings with the KCSC. 

The message expressed hope for building a relationship of trust between Telegram and the commission in an effort to make the platform safer for users before providing a separate email address for additional communication going forward. 

The email that the KCSC received before claimed that it was impossible for the platform’s operators to track down the harmful content reported by the Korean government.  

On Aug. 28, the KCSC announced plans to establish a hotline for reporting incidents of illicit sexual content, particularly on platforms like Telegram, to streamline the process of requesting deletion to platform operators. The KCSC also vowed to increase cooperation with overseas platforms like Google and X (formerly Twitter). 

By Sun Dam-eun, staff reporter

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