Community Policy

WEBTOON™ Community Policy and Uploading Guidelines

Last Updated: June 27, 2023.

WEBTOON™ is more than comics. We are a diverse community of creatives, illustrators, artists, writers, and fans. We are a storytelling destination that pushes the boundaries of creativity, art, and narrative. We value inclusivity and authenticity, and as a platform, WEBTOON strives to provide a safe and welcoming space for all creators and readers. To ensure this, we have outlined our community policy and uploading guidelines (these “Guidelines”), which form part of our Terms of Use. These Guidelines apply to your use of our Services (as defined in the Terms of Use), including our self-publishing platform, where you can publish your own comics (“CANVAS”). Your comics you uploaded and published on CANVAS are “User Postings” under our Terms of Use. Please refer to the Terms of Use for other provisions applicable to User Postings. Capitalized terms not defined in the Guidelines are defined elsewhere in the Terms of Use. By participating in CANVAS, you agree to be bound by the Terms of Use, including these Guidelines.

1. Content Guidelines.

a. Intellectual Property Rights. You must own all of the copyrights and other intellectual property rights to your uploads, and your User Postings must not infringe on the copyright, trademark, or publicity right of any other party, or you must have sufficient ownership or other intellectual property rights required to upload the User Postings consistent with these terms.

Posting, distributing or transmitting copyrighted content without the copyright holder’s consent is not allowed. This includes posting or distributing links to pirated content from another website or service. Any unauthorized content you share on WEBTOON may be subject to a take-down by the rights holder(s) to remove the infringing content as set forth below in the Section titled “Process for Reporting Copyright Infringement”.

b. User-Identifying, Abusive or Hateful Content. You may not reveal another user’s personal information (real name, contact information, address, social security numbers, etc.). Malicious, abusive, or hateful content or comment that promotes or encourages violence, or incites hate towards individuals or groups based on race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, political orientation, etc. is not allowed. This includes the use of hate speech symbols without meaningful context.

c. Mature or Sexual Content. Content that contains nudity or is intended to be sexually gratifying is not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to, full and partial nudity, as well as graphic depictions of sexual acts.

The “Mature Content Warning” feature must be used to identify mature themes and content, including topics of sexuality. However, please note that utilizing the “Mature Content Warning” feature does not mean that nudity or explicit sexual content is allowed on our Service. Although WEBTOON has no obligation to do so, WEBTOON may review your User Postings and in the event that WEBTOON determines that applying the Mature Content Warning function is appropriate, you may be requested to use the function. If you fail to use the Mature Content Warning function repeatedly when its use is appropriate or when requested by WEBTOON, the applicable episode or entire series may be removed or made inaccessible.

d. Violent or Graphic Content. We do not allow graphic depictions of gratuitous violence or content that promotes acts of violence. Examples of prohibited content include:
i. Brutal, extended, graphic acts of violence. ii. Depiction of sexual assault or forced sexual abuse, or glorification/promotion of inflicting harm on other persons or animals. iii. Glorification or promotion of self-harm or suicide. iv. Instructional content about the assembly, enhancement, or acquisition of guns, weapons or explosives. v. Denialism or minimization of crimes against humanity, provocation to commit acts of terrorism.
e. Dangerous or Illegal Content. Content that is encouraging, promoting, or soliciting dangerous or illegal activity is not allowed. Examples of dangerous or illegal content include, but are not limited to:
i. Spreading misinformation. ii. Content with themes of incest and grooming. iii. Glorification or promotion of illegal substances or drug use.
f. Advertising. Sponsored episodes must be expressly pre-approved by WEBTOON in writing and must be identified as such to avoid removal. Using automated means to increase view counts or perform social interactions, or creating multiple accounts to increase view counts or perform social interactions, will result in account suspension or removal.

2. Community Code of Conduct.

Due to our community values, in particular the commandment of mutual respect, the following actions are prohibited on CANVAS and on the WEBTOON community:

a. Any form of insulting, obscene, disrespectful, harassing and hurtful statements, posts or other behavior on CANVAS.
b. Any form of hate speech and verbal abuse, especially extremist or aggressive statements.
c. Any sexual comments, postings, links, or jokes, sexual advances, or similar behavior.
d. Any form of intimidation, harassment or threats on CANVAS, including stalking.
e. Posting or threatening to post personal information about others (e.g., real name, contact information, address, etc.).
i. Posting copyright infringing content or distributing links to copyright infringing content on other websites or services. ii. Excessive, meaningless, harassing or offensive posts or posting of unwanted links. iii. Creation of accounts or Creator Profiles or uploading of content for the primary purpose of driving traffic to external websites.

3. Potentially Unlawful Content and Conduct.

We reserve the right to remove content and discipline conduct that we deem, in our sole discretion, to be harmful or potentially unlawful. Examples of harmful or potentially unlawful content or conduct include (i) defamatory content or conduct, (ii) factually false or deceptive content or conduct, (iii) content or content that violates the privacy rights of another person, and (iii) content or conduct that violate the applicable laws or are prohibited by law.

4. Reporting Inappropriate Content.

a. Reporting Comments and Posts. To report comments, posts, or other content of Creator Profiles that violate the Guidelines or our Terms of Use, click on the “Report” link below the applicable comment or the “more” button on the applicable posts or Creator Profile. Reported material may be reviewed by our moderation team, and comments, Posts or other content of Creator Profiles in violation of our policies may be removed.

b. Reporting Series and Episodes; Removal. To report episodes that violate our content guidelines, click on the “Report” button available at the end of the relevant episodes.

Episodes with multiple reports may be automatically removed until further review. If the same episode or series is reported repeatedly, and if we determine that the reports are justified, the episode or series may be removed, and the user may receive a warning for inappropriate content. WEBTOON reserves the right to take further measures, such as blocking the creator from posting content and/or blocking its account.

5. Copyright Infringement.

a. Process for Reporting Copyright Infringement. If you believe a user's content violates your copyright or if you are the legal representative of the copyright holder, you may send a take-down notice to dmcanotice@webtoon.com with the following information. These requests should only be submitted by the copyright owner or any agent authorized to act on the owner’s behalf.
i. Materials which prove that the person is the copyright holder; ii. Identification of the infringing content and the specific URL of the infringing content on WEBTOON; iii. A statement that:
- You have good belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law
- The information in this notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, you are the owner, or an agent authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
- You request WEBTOON to remove or disable the infringing content;
- You agree to assume legal liabilities for misrepresentation. iv. Information of the copyright holder or legal representative sufficient to permit WEBTOON to contact you, such as full legal name (or official name, if a legal person), an address, phone number, or email address v. A signature of the copyright holder or the copyright holder’s legal representative (typing your full legal name is sufficient).
When we receive a valid take-down notice that complies with the requirements of applicable law, we will remove access to the content at issue and notify the user in accordance with applicable law. If we do not receive a response from the user in accordance with applicable law within fourteen (14) days, the content will remain blocked.

b. Counter-notice. If you believe that the content that was removed is not infringing, or if you have authorization from the copyright holder, the copyright owner’s agent, or pursuant to applicable law, you may send a counter-notice to our dmcanotice@webtoon.com with the following information.
i. Identification of the removed content and the specific URL of the content on WEBTOON; ii. A statement that:
- You have a good faith belief that the content was removed or disabled as a result of a mistake or misidentification of the content;
- You request WEBTOON to restore the removed or disabled content;
- You agree that WEBTOON forwards the counter-notice to the original notifying party;
- You consent to the jurisdiction of applicable court for the judicial district in which your address is located, and that you will accept service of process from the person who provided the original copyright infringement notification or an agent of such person;
- You agree to assume legal liabilities for misrepresentation. iii. Your full legal name (or official name, if a legal person), address, phone number, and email address; iv. Your physical or electronic signature (typing your full legal name is sufficient).
When a valid counter-notice is received that complies with the requirements of applicable law, we may forward the notice to the notifying party who submitted the original copyright infringement notification. The original notifying party will then have ten (10) business days to file legal action relating to the allegedly infringing material. Unless we receive notice of legal action in accordance with applicable law, access to the removed content may be restored in fourteen (14) days after we forwarded the counter-notice to the original notifying party.

c. If the information provided in a take-down notice or counter-notice is incomplete, we may request the sender to supplement the required information within five (5) business days after receiving such notice. If the sender fails to provide the requested information within five (5) business days after receiving our request, the take-down notice or counter-notice will be deemed not to have been sent to us.

6. Violations of this Guidelines.

a. In addition to any remedies available to us in the Terms of Use, we reserve the right to take any action we deem appropriate in response to violations of this Guidelines. Users who violate this Guidelines may be suspended from posting or submitting User Postings (temporarily or permanently) or have their account and access to the Services suspended or terminated.
b. While we generally attempt to provide advance notice to users of actions we take in response to Guidelines violations, we may elect not to do so at our sole discretion. As a result, violations of Guidelines or the Terms of Use may result in permanent loss of User Postings and other content previously accessible through the Services.
c. If your content has been removed or suspended due to Guidelines violations, you may contact our Creator Support team at creatorsupport@webtoon.com. However, please note that we do not offer an appeal process for actions we take in response to violations of this Guidelines.

7. Questions and Feedback.

If you have any questions or feedback about this Guidelines, or if you have safety concerns about the User Postings, feel free to contact us at creatorsupport@webtoon.com.