If there’s one thing that all proper, card-carrying ARMYs can agree on, it’s that we want the best for our boys. We want fair treatment from the industry and the press; we want them to be able to express themselves in the way that they want to in their chosen art forms; and, perhaps most importantly, we want them to be protected from malicious behavior. This malicious behavior may take many different forms, including but not limited to slander, cyber-bullying, or the creation of content which would be harmful to their reputation or mental state.
In 2019, Big Hit published a statement via Weverse to provide a top-level general update on their legal activities with regards to prosecuting people who have participated in malicious online attacks against the boys.
Specifically, they stated:
“Big Hit plans to continuously and regularly initiate legal proceedings based on evidence submitted by our fans as well as collected through our own internal monitoring efforts, and the frequency and intensity of these proceedings will be further increased in 2020.”
Additionally, they encouraged ARMY to continue reporting these activities via their hotline, promising that they would remain committed to the effort of protecting their artists.
However, despite these assurances, there were reports that some “ARMYs” have had a signage truck parked in front of the Big Hit office building in Seoul. These individuals cited unhappiness in the fandom regarding how the artists were being treated, as well as with Big Hit’s efforts to pursue people and accounts engaged in malicious behavior against the boys.
Since Borasaek Vision does not currently operate out of Korea, it is difficult for us to check the veracity of these reports. However, it’s not uncommon to see social media posts questioning whether Big Hit is pursuing antis as they promised.
This is something we can address.
First, let’s discuss the lawsuit process. Not being lawyers, there is only so much that we can discuss on this subject, but there are some basics we can cover. It is important to note that lawsuits can take an extensive amount of time. Exactly how much time it takes is dependent on the type of suit you’re dealing with and how much evidence you can find - this is what can be understood based on a quick Google search.
Big Hit, however, offers us some insight into the Korean lawsuit policy in their 2019 statement:
“For third-party complaints brought forth by fans or other individuals, please note that there is considerable difficulty in proceeding with such cases since third-party complaints require the artists to be summoned by the police as defendants to appear in person for questioning. Such appearances would be difficult to arrange due to the artists’ schedules as well as other limiting factors.”
From this, we can carefully make a reasonable, educated guess that in South Korea there are at least two different ways that defamation cases are handled: one way for cases which are built off of third-party evidence and a second way for cases built on the information of the defamed party itself. This is a little bit different than what we might expect, but upon a little analysis, it makes sense.
There are no legal systems in the world which are entirely identical. We cannot, therefore, assume that the legal policies we are familiar with outside of Korea will apply within Korea. In addition, each case itself is likely to be different, based on what evidence and information they can collect.
These sorts of cases are unlikely to be as straightforward as we would like them to be, or for that matter as straightforward as Big Hit would surely like them to be. There is undoubtedly a lot of dedicated effort which would go into locating the person behind malicious posts – it’s quite easy to conceal your identity on the internet, with many social media users having “stan” accounts which are not necessarily tied to their real names, making it difficult to know who exactly should be brought to court and made to pay the fines for their behavior.
In summary, we are on the outside of the situation, so there is a great deal of work which is going to go on we aren’t going to be able to see. Lawsuits require a lot of effort to ensure their success, which isn’t going to be an easy or quick process.
This brings up another point. With the number of tweets and other posts which diss BTS on a regular basis, we can assume that the Big Hit hotline is probably inundated with emails every day. This means that, before they can even get to the point of trying to figure out who to pursue, Big Hit must sift through possibly thousands of emails to figure out which ones they have any hope of successfully pursuing.
Not every tweet or post dissing BTS is slander or defamation, even if we don’t agree with the content. Saying “BTS sucks” is an opinion, which we are at liberty to disagree with (and do disagree with wholeheartedly). It isn’t, however, something that Big Hit could pursue as a defamation suit, no matter how ugly, déclassé, or venomous it may be. Every email sent about posts of this nature is another email that Big Hit has to read through, check, and discard, taking away time from investigating actual cases of defamation or slander.
So, let us create a hypothetical situation. Let’s say Big Hit receives 20 emails today about possible malicious posts on various social media platforms. It’s probable that 10 of those would be unusable because they were about opinions and could be immediately put aside. This leaves 10 emails for them to check to see if they are truthfully reporting malicious defamation posts. Of those, they may investigate and find that only two of these emails have usable information leading them to a case they can pursue. The other eight might be reporting cases of defamation, but their information might be so limited that they aren’t able to actually pursue the case.
Sifting through all this is a lot of work, and this is just the preliminary stage – before the evidence collection, presenting it to the courts, and any trial that might happen or testimony that might be required. Months could pass before any resolution has been reached.
In many ways, Big Hit is likely forced to pick its battles when it comes to these cases. They have significant resources, but they aren’t infinite – and, from a business perspective, they would most likely want to dedicate those resources to cases that they could win.
Just because we aren’t updated with every facet of the cases we present doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. Taking into consideration the information that we have about the legal process, pursuing defamation cases isn’t an instant process. We can’t expect to have an update two weeks after the case is discovered. Big Hit is also fairly open about their activities in pursuing these malicious posters – much more so than many other agencies in the industry.
As outside observers, we can only move forward with the information we have. Big Hit has been open about their activities to the extent that it can be without disrupting the investigations and has not demonstrated anything other than doing right by BTS. Based on some additional research, we can also see that no matter how much we might like it to be, the process is neither easy nor quick.
The only thing that we can do as fans is to do exactly as Big Hit asks of us: to be patient, and to continue to report malicious behavior. However, in doing so, we should also keep in mind that every email we send is one more thing that Big Hit has to filter through. When submitting a report for them, it’s our job to make sure that we’re reporting only things that they can use, no matter how frustrating some opinions might be.
If you spot something that you think is malicious, defamatory, or slanderous, report it to Big Hit via their hotline, protect@bighitcorp.com. Make sure you report the incident as fully as possible and keep your own opinions to a minimum – let the facts speak for themselves.
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Written By: Anna Moon
Edit By: Aury
Checked by Ash
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