Naver Refers Suspected Review Manipulation to Police

Naver says it has asked police to investigate suspected automated manipulation involving audience reviews of the film “Assassin(s).” The company said on October 4 that its internal analysis found abnormal traffic affecting some films, including signs of mechanical abuse involving review votes for “Assassin(s).”

The company has not publicly identified who may have been behind the activity. Its referral means it has submitted the suspected conduct for investigation; it does not establish that any particular person or group committed a crime.

The key concern is that automated activity may have distorted both the visibility of reviews and the apparent level of support for them.

A Highly Voted Review Rose to the Top

The controversy centers on Naver’s “helpful” and “not helpful” buttons, which allow users to vote on whether a review is useful. The results can affect which comments appear most prominently when a page is sorted by helpfulness, potentially giving a highly voted review far greater visibility than others.

Democratic Party lawmaker Noh Jong-myeon said a review criticizing the film and asking whether “Chinese workers were hired” had received 52,288 helpful votes and appeared at the top of the page. Noh alleged that a large number of votes had been artificially added to a one-star review using an automated program, commonly called a macro (software that repeats the same online action many times without a person manually doing each one).

Noh also criticized comments that used the word “communist” to attack the film and its creators. These statements are his allegations; the investigation will be needed to determine whether the votes were manipulated, who was responsible, and whether the activity violated any laws or platform rules.

What Naver Has Changed

Naver previously said that some reviews had been duplicated and that helpful and unhelpful votes had been counted more than once. The company said it removed duplicate reviews and corrected vote totals by excluding the repeated counts.

After identifying what it described as mechanical abuse involving “Assassin(s),” Naver made “newest” the default sorting option for that film instead of “most helpful.” This makes recently posted reviews appear first, rather than ranking comments by their accumulated helpfulness votes.

  • Naver says it detected abnormal traffic affecting some films.
  • The company says duplicated reviews were deleted and repeated vote counts were corrected.
  • For “Assassin(s),” the default display now prioritizes the newest reviews.
  • Naver also said film rating boards will display expert ratings only; audience and online-user ratings and reviews remain available in the review section.

These measures change how visitors encounter reviews, but they do not by themselves determine whether a coordinated campaign took place. Police would need to examine relevant evidence, such as traffic patterns and the way votes were submitted, to assess the allegations.

Why Review Rankings Matter

Online ratings can influence decisions even when users know that individual opinions are subjective. A person choosing a film may scan the score or the first few comments rather than read hundreds of reviews, so an unusually visible review can shape an impression of a movie before the viewer has watched it.

That makes the difference between a genuinely popular comment and an artificially boosted one important. If voting systems are manipulated, users may mistake coordinated activity for broad public agreement—a problem similar to a small group repeatedly filling out a paper survey to make its views look more widespread than they are.

The case also highlights a challenge for platforms that use popularity signals to organize content. Ranking systems can help people find useful reviews quickly, but they can become vulnerable when automated accounts or scripts repeatedly submit votes. Platforms must balance ease of use with safeguards that detect unusual activity without wrongly blocking legitimate users.

The Film’s Success and the Wider Dispute

The allegations emerged as “Assassin(s)” was drawing large audiences. The film passed two million admissions on October 3, its 11th day in theaters, according to the figures cited in the report.

The controversy therefore reaches beyond a technical dispute over a website’s buttons. It involves how online criticism, political language, and review rankings can affect perceptions of a film and the people who made it—especially when comments are presented as if they reflect a large consensus.

At the same time, a low rating or harsh criticism is not, on its own, evidence of manipulation. The central question is whether the voting activity was authentic or artificially generated, and that remains a matter for investigation.

What Comes Next

Naver said it referred the suspected activity to police, and Noh said the company had identified a suspected offender and filed a complaint with the cyber investigation division of the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency. The supplied information does not state that investigators have reached a conclusion or announced any findings.

The inquiry may help establish whether automated tools were used, how many reviews or votes were affected, and whether the activity was organized. Until those questions are answered, claims about the people behind the alleged campaign should be treated as allegations rather than proven facts.

For users, the episode is a reminder to treat highly ranked online comments as one source of information, not a definitive measure of public opinion. For platforms, the response will be judged not only by whether suspicious activity is removed, but also by how clearly they explain what was affected and how they protect the credibility of future ratings.