Under our corporate mission of "Closing the Distance," LINE strives to bring people, information, and services all over the world closer together to create positive relationships.
LINE and our group companies ("LINE Group") are doing our utmost to patrol content and ensure our services are safe, secure, and pleasant for users to use.
We have set guidelines to accomplish this, taking immediate action to suspend any posts that violate the rules and prevent inappropriate content from reaching countless users.
In all countries where the LINE Group's services are offered, we patrol the parts of our services where users are able to publicly post and browse content.
(The LINE Group does not patrol messages sent in private chats on the LINE app as these fall under the secrecy of communications.)
Any violating posts are suspended once detected.
We also bar users who repeatedly breach the rules from using LINE services or close their accounts.
In addition to the monitoring system, our patrol team checks all content reported by users.
While private content such as LINE chats and non-public VOOM posts are out of the scope of our monitoring system and patrol team's activities, users are able to report this type of content if they feel it is violating our guidelines. Only in this case will our patrol team review the reported private content.
In accordance with LINE's policies, we have published standards for posting content on LINE services to ensure that users can have a safe and secure experience.
Standards regarding posts on LINE*:
https://linecorp.com/en/safety/contributionStandard
*Applies to all LINE services
LINE OpenChat Safety Guidelines:
https://openchat-jp.line.me/other/guideline (Japanese only)
Additionally, we meticulously update rules to address rising social issues and social media trends (such as fake news and slandering of third parties), as well as to better align with the cultures of different countries, user needs, and the different ways our services are used.
The LINE Group has monitoring centers at five offices across four countries that constantly patrol our public services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
These centers check every public post made in Japanese, English, Chinese, Thai, and Indonesian and promptly suspend any that are identified as violations.
Service supervisors from the different countries will also meet regularly to discuss the issues they are facing and exchange actionable ideas to protect the LINE Group's services.
Countless users post content on the LINE app and the LINE Group's other services.
To find and remove problematic content with speed and accuracy from the vast number of posts, the LINE Group developed a cross-service patrol platform as part of our monitoring system.
The patrol platform provides us with a centralized way to swiftly adopt innovative technologies while also fine-tuning the system to different services for a more tailored approach to content monitoring.
An AI-driven system optimized to the LINE Group's services automatically assesses whether text, photos, and other posts could be in violation of LINE's standards.
This combination of AI and humans is how we patrol user content to quickly and accurately pinpoint violations and maintain the integrity of our services.
As part of efforts to provide a safe and secure social media space, the LINE Group is continually stepping up cooperation with other communication service/app providers and related government bodies such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the National Police Agency, working together to expedite measures for social media issues.
・Established Social Media Association of Japan
https://linecorp.com/ja/pr/news/ja/2020/3201 (Japanese only)
・Joined the Christchurch Call to Action
https://linecorp.com/en/pr/news/en/2020/3381
Below is the number of posts that LINE has blocked in the past six months.
| 1. No. of posts detected by system and suspended by monitoring team | 19,490,837 |
| 2. No. of posts reported by users and suspended by monitoring team | 774,679 |
| Total | 20,265,516 |
| 3. No. of posts suspended by automatic check | 9,826,404 |
| 4. No. of posts suspended by manual check | 10,439,112 |
Declaring intent to commit a crime (e.g. murder, a bombing), risks to human life (such as suicide-related content) or causing chaos among the general public
Child pornography, images of sexual content and genitalia, indecent acts, and attempting to solicit dates
Excessively hateful remarks, distressing images (e.g. of dead bodies), click fraud, links to phishing sites, etc.
Using tools to send stickers or messages repetitively in a short period of time, advertising adult sites, luring users to register for dating apps, etc.
Buying illegal drugs, fraud, and other illegal acts
Advertisement of counterfeit brand websites, paid promotion of unreliable or questionable information, etc.
Other types of content banned by the LINE Group's terms of use