Yahoo! News Users Making Abusive Comments Halve

Tokyo, Feb. 27 (Jiji Press)--The number of Yahoo! Japan users banned from posting comments in the Yahoo! News section due to their past defamatory or inappropriate comments halved after the portal site's operator introduced a measure last November to allow only users whose mobile phone numbers are registered to post comments, it was learned Monday.

The average number of banned users between December 2022 and January this year fell 56 pct from the level in October last year, according to Yahoo Japan Corp.

The number of times in which a message popped up on the screen urging users to reconsider their comments dropped 22 pct.

After abusive online comments became a social issue, Yahoo Japan started suspending users who repeatedly posted inappropriate comments from commenting under news articles in 2018.

In addition, Yahoo Japan began to require new users to register their mobile phone numbers. However, a "loophole" remained, letting some people make abusive comments using accounts they had created in the past.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]