This transparency report is shared with WEBTOON’s users in the EU, as required by the EU DSA. However, please note that the statistics provided below reflect WEBTOON’s global activities for the English platform.

Date of report: February 17, 2025 

1. Overview

WEBTOON Entertainment is a leading global entertainment company and home to some of the world's largest storytelling platforms. As the global leader and pioneer of the mobile webcomic format, WEBTOON Entertainment has transformed comics and visual storytelling for fans and creators, including the European Union (EU).

The DSA creates a uniform legal framework for providers of digital services to users in the EU. In order to create a safe, predictable, and trustworthy online environment, the DSA aims to create a single set of rules across the EU Member States governing the transparency and accountability obligations of online platforms.

WEBTOON shares the European Commission’s commitment to addressing the issue of harmful online content, and we have been working to comply with all applicable provisions of the DSA. Within the framework of the DSA, WEBTOON will continue to work on ways to provide a positive experience, building on our transparency measures to further our goal of creating a safe and positive space online.

2. Points of contact 

If you are a user, law enforcement agency or other authority located in the EU and have any questions about this DSA Information, please contact us (in English) at legal@webtoon.com or write to us at:

WEBTOON Entertainment Inc.

5700 Wilshire Blvd., Ste 220

Los Angeles, CA 90036

Attn: Legal - DSA

3. Terms and Conditions

WEBTOON’s Terms of Use require users to abide by various policies regarding content on WEBTOON. 

These include our Community Policy and Uploading Guidelines, which set out what is expected from users and what kinds of behaviour will not be tolerated. These policies are clear and designed to be easy to understand by all our users. 

1. Community Policy and Uploading Guidelines

As a platform, WEBTOON strives to provide a safe and welcoming space for all creators and readers. In order to create an inclusive and respectful space, our Community Policy and Uploading Guidelines outline the kinds of content creators and users can and cannot post.  This document outlines the standards that all creators and users must follow, together with the circumstances in which accounts on WEBTOON’s platform may be suspended or removed. They also outline the types of content that we will remove from the platform.

2. Moderation

WEBTOON has a team of specialised content moderation agents who are responsible for reviewing and actioning reported content and conduct. Our content moderation agents review all user-generated content registered in our monetization programs as well as content reported by users. 

WEBTOON provides comprehensive training and assistance for these agents on content moderation, including: 

• Training on WEBTOON’s Terms of Use and Community Policy and Uploading Guidelines, and the types of content that would violate these. 

• Detailed instructions on how to moderate content and use of tools 

• Regular refresher courses on how to appropriately moderate content. 

• Content moderation metrics to assess the effectiveness and accuracy of our agents’ moderation.

We also use the following automated tools:

• Advanced automated image moderation process that are used to scan content and proactively identify potential violations. All content uploaded to the Platform is scanned by a proprietary machine learning tool.

• Tools to proactively block and prevent text and phrases from being posted in comments, user profile posts, usernames, content titles and description

If our software or our users report content or conduct to WEBTOON, our agents review reports and either mark the content as acceptable or remove it from the platform. 

In the period of time between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024: 

• Episode Moderation: A total of 4790 episodes were reported to WEBTOON; we removed 1629 violative episodes based on reports and proactive reviews.

• User Comment Moderation: WEBTOON removed 305,295 comments determined to be violative of WEBTOON policies, as a result of reviews of submitted reports and proactive reviews; a total of 39,923 comments were reported to WEBTOON.

• Creator Profile Moderation: WEBTOON removed 18,816 user posts determined to be violative of WEBTOON policies, as a result of review of submitted reports and proactive reviews; a total of 3,161 of such posts were reported to WEBTOON.

During the period of time between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024, WEBTOON received no orders (to act against illegal content and for information) from Member States’ authorities and no reports of illegal content received by Trusted Flaggers.  

4. Notice and Action 

1. Reporting:

On WEBTOON, creators express themselves through webcomics and are required to provide a content rating  for their works in accordance with the guidelines provided, and the content ratings are monitored by WEBTOON. For more information, please see our WEBTOON CANVAS Content Age Rating documentation. 

Alongside our proactive technology-driven moderation, if any user comes across any content that violates our guidelines, they can let us know by reporting it. See here for how to do that.

2. Decision-Making:

WEBTOON uses a combination of technology and a world-class Trust & Safety team to help find and remove content violations. 

WEBTOON’s moderators adhere to the Community Policy and Uploading Guidelines,  Terms of Use and U.S. Law to make decisions about content and conduct that are subject to removal. These policies govern WEBTOON, and moderators have access to an internal set of moderation guidelines document that further supports their decision making processes. Policy and guideline documents are pivotal in the governance of WEBTOON to maintain consistency and platform safety. 

WEBTOON’s moderators assess repeated user behaviour and user-generated content against policies to determine whether accounts and content should remain on WEBTOON. Users may be suspended when they have violated WEBTOON’s Terms of Use or applicable law. 

3. Reporting Content to the Authorities

WEBTOON adheres to U.S. Law that governs ISP’s reporting requirements. In addition, where WEBTOON becomes aware of information giving rise to a suspicion that a criminal offence involving a threat to a person’s life or safety has taken place, or may take place imminently, WEBTOON reports such information to users’ local law enforcement where it deems it necessary to do so. 

4. Resources:

Education is a critical intervention to enhance safety on any online platform. The WEBTOON Trust and Safety center is intended to assist users  (including parents/guardians) learn about how to stay safe online. The WEBTOON Trust and Safety center includes articles on subjects like content ratings, reporting content, and privacy. 

5. Appeals

If the impacted user believes we've mistakenly taken action on their content, they can appeal WEBTOON’s decision by following the process detailed below. 

For EU users to submit an appeal:

Option 1:

1. Send an email to creatorsupport@webtoon.com, with the series name and creator nickname.

2. A request will be opened for WEBTOON’s review.

Option 2:

1. Submit a request via our Help Center

2. Select “Publishing on CANVAS and Creator Support” and select “Episode removal appeal” under Creator Support Inquiry

3. Enter the Series Title and Creator name when prompted. Click Submit.

4. A request will be opened for WEBTOON’s review

Please note that any reference to WEBTOON’s decisions being final and irreversible in other articles does not apply to moderation action under the DSA. Impacted users in the EU have the ability to appeal WEBTOON’s decisions as outlined above.

During the period of time between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024, WEBTOON received a total of 933 appeals based on episode removals, resulting in 13 decisions being overturned and 920 decisions sustained. 

WEBTOON will work with out-of-court dispute settlement bodies to the extent required by law. Users who are dissatisfied with the result of their appeal to WEBTOON should contact the company if they wish to engage an out-of-court dispute settlement mechanism. During the period of time between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024, there have been no disputes submitted to the out-of-court dispute settlement bodies.

5. Recommender system 

WEBTOON’s Recommender and Ranking Systems encompass the following:

1. Non-personalized recommender systems:

On the For You page, the recommender system aims to identify popular, similar, trending titles that users may find engaging. They achieve this by analyzing engagement parameters such as: 

• series page views

• reading intervals

• reading days

• reading episode count

Additionally, the algorithm takes into account title attributes such as genres, latest episode updates, and user ratings.

On the series details and episode page, the recommender system aims to discover titles similar to the base series. To achieve this, it examines interaction vectors, such as data tracking which other series users read or interacted with in relation to the base series.

2. Personalised recommender systems:

There are multiple recommender systems working together to drive user engagement and personalise based on users’ reading history & action history. Some recommendation algorithms have a single objective while others have multiple.

These diverse recommender systems leverage a broad spectrum of parameters, including:

• User’s reading history, examining stories started, ongoing, or completed.

• User reading patterns, considering factors like dates of series engagement, percentage completion per episode daily/weekly, etc.

• User preferences inferred from their reading history or onboarded tags, such as favorite genres or preferred creators based on follows.

• Series Interaction vectors to determine the next recommended read.

• Browsing patterns and user actions.

6. Online protection of minors 

WEBTOON does not present ads to users in the EU based on profiling as defined in Article 4, point (4), of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 using personal data of the recipient of the service when it is aware with reasonable certainty that the recipient of the service is a minor.

7. Information on Average Monthly Active Recipients in the EU

Pursuant to Article 24(2) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (DSA), WEBTOON provides the following information on the average monthly active recipients of its online platform in the European Union. For the six month period ending on 31 Dec 2024, WEBTOON has estimated the average monthly active recipients of our online platform in the European Union to be approximately 4.3 million. This information has been prepared for Article 24(2) of the DSA. This information may differ from user metrics reported in other contexts and should not be used for any other purposes.

WEBTOON will continue to monitor its online platform in the European Union and will continue to publish updated information on the average monthly active recipients in accordance with Article 24(2) of the DSA. ​