They deny that it was used for reverse viral marketing.
Koreaboo
More recently, MOVES‘s leaked internal documents have caused quite a stir in the K-Pop industry.
Previously, ex I LOVE IT CEO Min Hee Jin expressed his thoughts on the internal documents in an internal email in April.
The content is so biased that I suspect it was distributed for some kind of propaganda. We need facts like numbers and we want at least a minimum level of objectivity.
—Min Hee Jin
Recently, the CEO of HYBE Lee Jae Sang issued an official apology regarding the documents.
The content of the document was very inappropriate. We immediately stopped drafting the document and will create guidelines and strengthen internal control to prevent this from happening again.
—Lee Jae Sang
HYBE CEO apologizes for company’s inappropriate internal documents
However, they denied that it was reverse viral marketing (media gaming).
More recently, Weverse magazine reported that a former editor-in-chief was the person who compiled the documents and that the rest of the team was reportedly unaware of the documents.
Weverse magazine exposes the employee who was writing HYBE’s controversial internal reports
Media release CBS NoCutNews held a Q&A session with HYBE regarding the documents. Below are the full questions and answers.
“Request: The Weverse Magazine team declared its official position on November 9th. Why did they issue a separate statement ten days after the CEO apologized?
Answer: As you heard, Lee Jae Sang apologized on October 29 and removed the Weverse director who wrote the report from his position. Since then, there have been numerous suspicions that other members of the Weverse Magazine team took part in the drafting of the documents. For this reason, we have decided to release an additional document to clarify.
Request: The Weverse Magazine team stated that, other than the former editor-in-chief, no other members or external contributors were aware of this document. Does this mean that the former editor asked a separate staff, who is not part of the team, to write the report? Furthermore, one part of the document reads: “Members participating in the relationship are leaving, so the relationship will take a break for a week”, which is criticized as not convincing. What is your position on this?
Answer: The former Editor-in-Chief created the tracking document as a separate task from Weverse Magazine and the staff requested by the former Editor are separate members of the Weverse Magazine team.
Request: The former editor-in-chief has been removed from his position. What is their current position? Are there any other follow-up measures in relation to this incident?
Answer: The former editor-in-chief is currently on standby and not working. After an internal review, appropriate measures will be taken.
Request: In the CEO’s apology, he denied the suspicion of reverse viral marketing. However, a netizen claiming to be a HYBE employee claimed that many of the things in the report were actually planned. Do you still support the claim that there was no reverse viral marketing, and if they are false, are you preparing follow-up measures on this?
Answer: The claim that we used reverse viral marketing is not true. We are considering taking appropriate action regarding false claims.
Request: You said you will contact each agency separately to apologize directly. Please explain how and to what extent you are apologizing.
Answer: We apologized to each agency of the artists mentioned in the documents by telephone or via official documents under the name of CEO Lee Jae Sang.
The many K-Pop groups insulted in HYBE’s internal documents
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