KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 2 — The South Korea Singers Association has urged the country’s search engine Naver to disable the comment section of entertainment articles to protect its members.

In a report by pop culture website Soompi, the association said its members were angry that they had to bid farewell to former K-pop girl group Kara member Goo Hara even before they had yet to recover from losing former f(x) member Sulli.

Besides disabling the comment section, the association also called on the country’s National Assembly to have a legislation to clamp down on fake news and punish those who produce sensational and malicious articles that lead to vicious comments.

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It called on the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to establish to enforce realistic measures to protect singers of popular music, “who are national assets”, warning that it should also track down those who harm the country’s music industry.

The association which was founded in 1957 to protect the rights of its fraternity insisted that, “We will take action using all possible ways and measures until our requests are fulfilled.”

It was reported in October that web portal Daum and social network Kakao would temporarily disable the comments section for its entertainment news.

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Many believe that defamatory and toxic comments online were reasons behind Sulli’s apparent suicide on Oct 14 and Goo’s death on Nov 24.

Last month, South Korean politicians were reported to be gearing up to table the new act — Sulli’s Law — during the National Assembly this month.

Korean pop culture site Allkpop had reported that the law, spearheaded by the New Alternative Party ― a recent offshoot of National Assembly representatives would focus on reducing malicious comments that are posted online.

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