Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
1 in 4 game users experience sexual harassment, discrimination
People play online games at an internet cafe in Daejeon in this Feb. 16 photo. Korea Times file
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
One out of four online game users here has experienced sexual harassment or gender discrimination while playing, a survey showed Sunday.
According to the survey conducted for a month from May 23 by the Korea Creative Content Agency, of 3,000 online gamers aged between 10 and 65, 26.6 percent said they have experienced sexual harassment or gender discrimination when playing games, about a 10 percentage point increase from 16.7 percent in the same survey last year.
When multiple answers were allowed, 68.6 percent of the respondents said they received messages containing sexually abusive words from other users through messaging or chatting tools on the game platforms.
More than 27 percent said they received obscene images or video clips, while 26.5 percent said they experienced sexually harassing language through voice chatting.
In addition, 15.7 percent were asked to play a specific character or position in games because other users said it matched their gender, and 9.3 percent said other users requested personal contact information or to meet in person.
When asked how many times they experienced such sexual harassment or gender discrimination, 29.6 percent answered twice, while 24.9 percent said more than five times.
As to the responses, 45.6 percent said they reported such users to the game companies, but 38.3 percent said no specific measures were taken.
Of those reporting abusive behavior, 64.6 percent said the companies temporarily suspended problematic users from using text or voice chatting. But 33.8 percent said they did not impose any penalties or disadvantages to them.