BTS label Big Hit Music updated fans last week on its legal attacks on people who criticize the group online and on social media.
“Our company regularly initiates legal proceedings against perpetrators of malicious activities related to BTS, including ill-intentioned criticism, the spread of groundless information, sexual harassment, personal attacks and defamation,” reads a statement.
Big Hit Music, part of Hybe, said it filed criminal complaints in South Korea for defamation and insult “against perpetrators who engaged in repeated posting or spreading malicious replies and writings exceeding the boundaries of socially-acceptable expression of opinions on online communities, blogs and social media.”
The company explained it filed civil suits for damages in cases “where the criminal complaint was concluded with a sentencing.”
Big Hit Music vowed to “continue to initiate strict measures to ensure that perpetrators who engage in these malicious acts are prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and our policy of no settlement and no leniency remains in effect.”
Under South Korean law, people can be criminally charged with defamation even if what they said or wrote is true. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has urged the government to abolish the law.
In Canada (and many other countries), defamation is strictly a civil matter and can be defended by proving that the statements are true or fair comment.