Jung Min-ho has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2012, mostly covering social and political issues. He currently belongs to the Politics & City Desk where he covers topics such as health, labor and human rights. Prior to joining the team, he was responsible for covering North Korea and sports. His article about a biosecurity breach of Middle East respiratory syndrome won him an award from the Korea Science Journalists Association in 2016. He is also the co-author of the book, "Medical Pioneers of Korea" (2019). He served as the head of the international relations committee at the Journalists Association of Korea from 2021 to 2023.
Porn main revenue source for abusive boss
Police search the office of WeDisk at Seongnam in Gyeonggi Province, Friday. Yonhap
By Jung Min-ho
By Jung Min-ho
Yang Jin-ho
Porn has been the main revenue source for the online storage company of Yang Jin-ho, who is taking flak for years of his abusive behavior toward his underlings.
According to police and industry sources Monday, a big part of WeDisk's revenue most likely came from pornographic content, from which it takes commissions for connecting uploaders and downloaders.
Some say such content accounts for more than 90 percent of the company's revenue.
The size of Yang's wealth is unclear, but some media reported that it is more than 100 billion won ($89 million).
“He has accumulated wealth by enabling people to share porn. He wanted to be a member of the upper class. But nobody would consider him elite if they found out how he made his fortune. So he set up a robotics company (K-Technology) to improve his image,” said an independent journalist, who broke the story with a local media outlet News Tapa.
After the issue came to light, police have been investigating the allegations that Yang paid pornographic content providers to upload their videos and photos to WeDisk.
Police are expected to summon him for questioning soon.
The IT entrepreneur is accused of assaulting his former employee and forcing some others to kill chickens with a crossbow and a Japanese sword for the company's workshop dinner in 2016. More people have since come out with new allegations of his wrongdoings.
Yang later apologized and said he would step down as CEO of his two companies.