On this day, HYBE is facing a wave of public criticism due to the leak of "inappropriate" internal documents. In particular, the documents also revealed how HYBE took advantage of V's dating rumors and how they despised his album.
In response to the wave of criticism, a few hours ago, HYBE's CEO Lee Jae Sang apologized on behalf of the company to the artists affected by this document. The CEO's actions were only taken after the company's statements failed to calm public opinion.
Below is HYBE's move in the above chaotic situation:
Kpop fans in general and ARMYs in particular have recently been unable to contain their anger towards HYBE since the company's leaked internal documents. Specifically, the matter became complicated after internal documents with excessive content, even false and maliciously insulting HYBE artists, including superstar V of BTS and some other artists.
Most notably, V was mentioned in the document as a tool to attract media attention when false dating rumors were released. Instead of dispersing the crowd and preventing it as a management company, HYBE felt "happy" because he helped other members have more freedom in their personal lives. The document also exposed that HYBE downplayed his solo album and did not do its best to promote it.
Over the past several hours, ARMYs have continuously "attacked" HYBE on SNS and demanded that the company apologize to V as well as other artists affected by the content of the internal document. Not only that, fans also created public pressure forcing HYBE to admit their mistakes instead of just blaming "others" in the previous statement.
Finally, a few hours ago, Mr. Lee Jae Sang, CEO of HYBE, sent an official apology on behalf of the company as follows:
"As HYBE’s CEO, I would like to apologize for the company’s internal monitoring documents.
I would like to bow my head in apology to the artists, industry officials, and fans in regards to our internal monitoring documents that were shared during the National Assembly’s audit with the Ministry of Culture, Sport, and Tourism committee on October 24.
The documents were prepared through the collection of various public reactions and opinions in response to industry trends and issues. They were only shared within some members of leadership [of the company] for the purpose of understanding the public opinion and the fans, however the contents of the documents were extremely inappropriate. On behalf of the company, we acknowledge all of our wrongdoings and we take responsibility for the provocative and crude remarks made towards other K-Pop artists, the inclusion of the author’s personal views and evaluations, and the fact that these ideas were documented. In particular, we are very sorry and remorseful for the situations where innocent artists and members became misunderstood and were victims due to suspicions that came about through reverse-virality rumors that were not true. [T/N: reverse virality refers to spreading an idea with the intention to create a negative public opinion]
We would like to respectfully and officially apologize to the artists who were mentioned in the documents and were hurt by them. We have also contacted each agency of the artists mentioned and apologized directly to them. We also sincerely apologize to our HYBE artists, who are taking the heat for their company.
We acknowledge that the leadership who shared the documents lacked awareness of the potential issues they would bring and as the CEO, I have immediately halted the creation of future documents. I promise to establish guidelines and strengthen internal control to prevent soмєтнing like this from happening again.
Once again, I would like to apologize to the artists, industry officials, fans, and everyone who loves and supports K-Pop who were hurt by this. As the company CEO, I would like to say that I plan to comprehensively improve on the past wrongdoings and will do my best for the continued development of the K-Pop industry through self-reflection and by prioritizing the rights and interests of the K-Pop artists and fans."
Along with that, there is information that HYBE has fired the executive director in charge of writing the internal report as a move to appease public opinion. However, with what has been revealed recently, HYBE certainly has not been able to calm the anger of fans and make the hurt artists feel respected.
