ARMYs are demanding an apology from South Korean media channel MBC. This was after the news outlet used BTS's images in one news coverage about how faces of celebrities are edited to turn them into sexually suggestive pictures, or the so-called deepfakes.
Online users reacted to this news by posting their opinion through their Twitter accounts. Below are the comments posted on their official Twitter account.
"MBC utilized BTS and edited and placed their faces on a news context without giving acknowledgment appropriately or pixelating it on a story which obviously has no connection with them. That's very Arrogant and really UNPROFESSIONAL to ruin BTS reputation and circulate conflicts," an ARMY said.
"I am just so mad about this whole situation. BTS absolutely does not deserve any of this," another fan wrote.
"People, please do not use the MBC hashtag. All that does is make people more curious and click on what's going on and that will spread the images. K-ARM Y's are contacting MBC directly through their customer service board and emailing/calling them," one fan tweeted.
Heaps of fans called out MBC for their recent act, mostly labeling the station as "unprofessional."
"The fact that MBC isn't a small company but managed to act so childish, unprofessional, and disrespectful towards bt* by using their pics for a news segment that has nothing to do with them really pissed me off. We want nothing but your apologies," one online user wrote on Twitter.
"MBC, your unprofessional-ism is clearly showing, editing BTS faces in the background for a topic that is so disbursing & had nothing to do with them, that is just highly disrespectful and not right, your not going to get away with this," another ARMY said.
What irked the ARMYs was that MBC used BTS members as their illustration to report such a very sensitive matter. Not only that but fans trended the hashtag "#MBC_합성_사과해" (MBC Apologize For The Edits) on Twitter as MBC used poorly edited photos and clips of the BTS members during their news coverage.
"Damn, they didn't even try lmao. Why'd they even bother to use some of the BTS's pictures and used them to spread misinformation, when they obviously knew that how big they are in the industry and that almost everyone in this world knew about them, fan or anti so that most people would notice it," one fan said.
The MBC News Today's story broadcast was to explain how police are handling the investigation regarding the dissemination of extreme pornographic materials, involving personalities on different porn websites.
The news report presented many illustrations of how deep-rooted technology may operate, including the deep-rooted face of Robert Downey Jr. onto Korean solo artist IU.
They then used a YouTuber's video clip, where the YouTuber deep-faked the appearance of Jackie Chan onto every BTS member.
MBC News Today clarified that while deep-faced technology has been created to create humorous or comical footage to make people laugh, people use famous personalities to produce a video that is malicious to pornographic. The lawsuit lodged with the authorities stated that about 100 celebrities are victims of deepfaked videos like this.
The report and the company itself gained negative feedback from the people on social media, and MBC has not yet released a statement regarding this issue.
