The Korean Medicine Association has filed a complaint with the Broadcasting and Communications Standards Commission, reporting the physician community site Medistaff as a source of illegal and harmful content.
The association cited three posts on the site that it said crossed the line with sexual mockery and appearance-based ridicule targeting female Korean medicine doctors. However, the outright closure of the site that the association is calling for is unlikely to materialize.
According to industry sources Thursday, the commission recently received a request from the association to have the three Medistaff posts removed. The case is set to proceed through a series of steps: staff review, referral to the communications review subcommittee, and a vote by committee members.
Under the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection and the commission's own rules, when a user files a complaint designating content as illegal or harmful to minors, the commission must open a review.
The association took issue with posts that combined profanity with appearance-based and sexually charged mockery of female Korean medicine doctors, the exposure of female practitioners' names, photos and SNS accounts, and the repeated use of a derogatory term likening Korean medicine doctors to cockroaches.
However, the complaint is limited to a removal request for the three posts and has no bearing on whether the site itself is shut down.
Moreover, the commission said no site has ever been closed solely on the grounds of discriminatory or degrading content. Any decision, it added, must weigh not only the presence of illegal or harmful material but also the site's role in facilitating useful information exchange.
![The headquarters of the Korean Medicine Association. [Provided by the Korean Medicine Association]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/10/10/news-p.v1.20261008.f05cc15f8cfc4604b128488c5efe89b5_P1.jpg)
Meanwhile, the commission's slow handling of complaints drew fire at this year's national audit.
According to data on AI chatbot complaint processing submitted to Rebuilding Korea Party lawmaker Kim Seon-min by the commission, 119 complaints had been filed over AI chatbot-related content including sexually explicit and suggestive material, yet 76 cases were still under secretariat review as of Sept. 21. Forty cases had been dismissed, and only three had completed the review process.
Of the 76 cases still under review, seven had been pending for more than a year — including one stretching 494 days — while 36 had been waiting between six months and a year. A further 18 had been pending between 60 days and six months, nine between 30 and 60 days, and six for fewer than 30 days.
ko@heraldcorp.com
