The Great Abusing Scandal

The abusing scandal was inextricably tied to Yoo Jae-won and the ID Foundation. It was the massive escalation of the butterfly effect triggered by VoteForChild. After all, the defining trait of both abusers and attention-seekers is that the more eyes they attract, the more unhinged they become. And VoteForChild was a perfect example.

Following Yoo Jae-won's orders, Team Leader Jake permanently suspended the VoteForChild account for vote manipulation and bribery, filed a police report, and announced that all donation recipients selected through the fraudulent entries would have their funds reclaimed. The notice went live on the front page of 2CH.com and the ID Foundation homepage. Finally, the foundation declared it would temporarily suspend the medical aid campaign for children with intractable diseases until the crisis was resolved. They would either wait for institutional safeguards to be implemented or develop their own robust security measures before restarting as quickly as possible.

The truly absurd part was VoteForChild's response. In gaming circles, when someone was caught abusing—whether by subtly inflating ELO rankings or providing proxy services—the usual move was to go dark. But VoteForChild was as skilled at attracting aggro as he was at abusing systems. The moment his original account was banned, he created a new one and began flooding every corner of the internet with claims that the entire ID Group charity event for children with incurable diseases had been completely rigged.

Yoo Jae-won had never expected the individual known as VoteForChild to quietly accept his punishment. Given the money involved, he had anticipated some form of legal counterattack and had already prepared the legal team and external law firms for potential litigation. What he hadn't anticipated was how shamelessly the man would rampage.

The real problem was that his posts were generating significant traction.

"Have the investigation results come in yet?"

Yoo Jae-won, having arrived at the airport for an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠international flight, was speaking with Remington over a long-distance call. The situation had been so urgent that he hadn't even been able to say goodbye to his parents in person and had to convey his farewell over the phone. He had even asked them to pass messages along to everyone else. Immediately afterward, he had dialed Remington.

Remington's voice over the phone was heavy with dejection.

"I see."

- The full investigation isn't complete yet, but we've already identified two cases. The two individuals Remington referred to had followed VoteForChild's example, posting across various platforms claiming that the ID Group had also manipulated its beneficiary selections. Remington had initially pushed back against these claims and launched an internal review. To his dismay, the accusations had proven partially true.

- However, it wasn't outright manipulation in the same sense. They had simply posted their stories and asked colleagues for recommendations. Unlike VoteForChild, they hadn't fabricated false narratives or accepted money. It wasn't widespread fraud.

"That's a relief, at least."

What clearly distinguished them from VoteForChild was the absence of financial gain. Aside from that detail, their actions aligned uncomfortably closely with his. Most posts on the donation board described genuinely difficult situations. Whether a particular story was selected or buried often came down to pure timing and luck—which type of netizens happened to be browsing the board at that moment. Stories that triggered empathy received recommendations; others were passed over.

The critical variable was the number of early recommendations. It worked exactly like a snowball effect. Posts that gained unusually high recommendation counts right after being uploaded drew immediate attention, making readers far more likely to click the recommend button themselves.

"Tiffany?"

- Yes. The media seems to have caught on as well. Articles are beginning to surface one by one.

"That's deeply concerning. My face is already public, so it doesn't matter much for me, but Tiffany is still a civilian."

- Understood. We will use every resource at the Group's disposal to contain this.

Yoo Jae-won ended the call with Remington and immediately dialed Tiffany. As the ringtone sounded, various thoughts swirled through his mind. Come to think of it, Tiffany had been the first to inform him about the irregularities on the donation board. She clearly hadn't discovered the anomalies through casual browsing alone.

The call connected quickly, and Yoo Jae-won went straight to the point.

"Yeah! That's exactly why I realized something was wrong with the board!" Tiffany's voice rose with excitement.

From what she explained, Tiffany had posted her own entry about a child with an intractable disease—the younger sibling of a classmate. Thanks to her personal connection, the post was detailed and sincere. She had spent two full days crafting it using ID Word Processor, pouring genuine care into every sentence. After all, while she felt awkward asking for direct help from friends, official selection in the charity event would provide proper support without burdening anyone.

She had strategically uploaded the carefully written post during peak evening hours when traffic was highest. The netizens' response had been positive, matching the effort she had invested. However, shortly after posting, a flood of other stories pushed her entry down the board. Many of those rising posts, she noted, contained almost no substantive content.

"Ah, so VoteForChild was the one doing the burying."

"Exactly! Once I started monitoring the board, it became obvious!"

As expected, Tiffany had reacted with fire. After watching her heartfelt post get relentlessly suppressed, she had gone on the offensive, identifying the abusers. She hadn't simply monitored—she had waited for their activity windows, posted counter-articles exposing them, and even dragged VoteForChild into a chat room to confront him directly.

This was why Tiffany's name had appeared ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠when VoteForChild posted his rebuttals. The real issue, however, was the media. Sensationalist outlets had no interest in detailed analysis. The mere fact that someone within the ID Group—and worse, Yoo Jae-won's own girlfriend—had participated in the charity event was enough to breed suspicion.

The public loved these kinds of stories. Fact-checking came second to the thrill of juicy gossip and whispered speculation. In the end, despite spending far more than the originally announced prize money for a good cause, Yoo Jae-won risked being left with nothing but a mountain of suspicion.

Meanwhile, traditional print and television media, already wary of the internet's explosive growth, saw this as prime opportunity and began piling on with even greater fervor.

"I haven't done anything to be ashamed of!" Tiffany declared. "If necessary, I'll testify in court! So don't worry too much. The one who did wrong was VFC."

She was right. No matter how the media war played out, Yoo Jae-won could hold his head high. Both his employees and Tiffany had only acted to help people close to them in need. Most importantly, 2CH.com was an open community where anyone could post and anyone could recommend. There was no rule prohibiting ID Group employees or Yoo Jae-won's girlfriend from using the platform.

After ending the call with Tiffany, Yoo Jae-won and his entourage boarded the plane.

The following day, Yoo Jae-won arrived safely in San Francisco and headed directly to the headquarters of ID Technology. According to the original schedule, the groundbreaking ceremony for the new ID Technology headquarters should have taken place first. It was intended to be a major event where all of ID Group’s subsidiaries in San Francisco could gather under one roof. The construction budget alone had been set at an astonishing four hundred million dollars. Because San Francisco was occasionally affected by earthquakes, they had deliberately avoided constructing a skyscraper. Instead, the building would rise only five stories above ground with three underground levels. However, its enormous square-shaped layout made it larger than most convention centers. The headquarters had been designed to comfortably accommodate the entire Group even if it expanded three or four times beyond its current size. Although real estate in Silicon Valley was expensive, it still did not approach the prices seen in Seoul or Tokyo. As a result, the total construction cost remained relatively reasonable at four hundred million dollars.

However, the immediate priority was responding to the abusing scandal. The ceremony was canceled, and an emergency meeting was convened instead.

The Nextcom news page was plastered with the story. As if coordinated, most articles sang the same tune—pointing out the lack of credibility in internet platforms while indirectly criticizing Yoo Jae-won. Simply reading ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the coverage, one might mistakenly believe the entire fiasco was his fault. Even Tiffany's involvement was distorted and sensationalized. That she was Yoo Jae-won's girlfriend was common knowledge in Silicon Valley and at Stanford, but the media had taken it too far.

"Why is there zero mention of VFC? And there must be plenty of other abusing cases besides ours, right?"

What Yoo Jae-won found most incomprehensible was the media's selective focus. Through simple searches and conversations with other site administrators, Team Leader Jake had confirmed that abusing cases were rampant. A basic investigation would reveal dozens of examples, yet the press was fixated solely on the ID Group incident. They offered no solutions, only repeated claims that Yoo Jae-won and the ID Group had committed a grave error and wasted one hundred million dollars.

Leading this charge was, predictably, Fox TV. Whether they harbored some particular grudge against Yoo Jae-won or not, the network had a habit of inflating any negative story about the ID Group by several magnitudes. Watching Fox News, one might think Yoo Jae-won had orchestrated the entire scandal simply because he didn't want to donate the money.

"The media has never operated normally," Remington said, shaking his head in clear disgust. "Still, it's our turn now. Once the media outlets friendly to the boss begin moving and our counterattack starts, these people will have no choice but to change their tone."

Yoo Jae-won had not been idle. He had already sent detailed press kits with supporting evidence to media organizations friendly to the ID Group. The San Francisco local papers had always been supportive. So had the LA Times. Progressive outlets like The Washington Post and The New York Times followed the same pattern. Then there was Ted Turner's TBS. Having ridden together on the Android OS share acquisition, they held favorable views toward Yoo Jae-won. In contrast, they were sworn enemies of Fox TV, making it inevitable that they would not let the VFC incident pass quietly.

"We cannot let this matter slide. With internet public opinion already exploding, this is the perfect moment to establish institutional safeguards."

Above all, online sentiment had long since passed the critical point and detonated. Contrary to traditional media's wishes, the target of public condemnation was overwhelmingly VFC, who had engaged ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in clear abuse. The fact that they had accepted money to manipulate the system was undeniable, making them the primary object of outrage. These were children and parents already suffering from terrible diseases; exploiting their pain to line one's own pockets was inexcusable.

No matter how the media tried to shift the narrative, and regardless of how VFC tried to drag Tiffany into his defense, the public would not tolerate it.

As Yoo Jae-won had hoped, the following day brought a shift in mass media coverage.

Articles favorable to the ID Group began appearing one after another. Stories highlighted how manipulation wasn't unique to the internet but existed widely in reality. Reports pointed out the lack of regulatory tools to punish such behavior. Leading the way were TBS and CNN. Despite his eccentricities and blunt speech, Ted Turner proved a reliable ally once on your side. His networks began running properly analyzed coverage of the incident. At the same time, his trademark bluntness made an appearance.

These were statements Ted Turner made without hesitation during interviews with reporters. Yoo Jae-won couldn't tell whether the man was trying to help him or simply fan the flames higher. His remarks were as fiery as ever.

With balanced reporting emerging, media opinion began to even out. However, the scale of the controversy showed no signs of shrinking. If anything, it felt even larger than the day before. This incident had never been something that could die down overnight. The associated keywords—incurable disease children, one hundred million dollars, manipulation, Yoo Jae-won, girlfriend—formed an incredibly inflammatory combination.

Moreover, because America was such a vast country, information spread with noticeable time lags. While the internet had largely sided with the ID Group, the controversy in traditional mass media was only just beginning.

During this time, Yoo Jae-won moved quickly. His first destination was the data center in Coyote City. Following Center Director Joseph's guidance, he entered the deepest server room. After clearing everyone out, he stood alone before the server control console.

"I really didn't want to use this yet."

Sitting before the computer that directly controlled the cloud servers, Yoo Jae-won loosened his fingers. He then opened the control panel of a program he had been running in secret. While the Coyote City data center primarily operated web servers, Yoo Jae-won had installed another program alongside them: a machine learning system.

Specifically, it was a natural language processing model that monitored boards on Nextcom and 2CH.com, learning modern English from user posts.

"As expected, the completion level is still quite low."

The applied algorithms were decades ahead of their time. Given sufficient time, the system could easily evolve into a universal translator. However, without dedicated machine-learning acceleration chips and with computational resources limited to avoid interfering with data center operations, learning efficiency remained poor.

Still, it was more than adequate for the task Yoo Jae-won was about to undertake: profanity filtering.

"Are they all sick with a disease that kills them if they don't swear?"

Before the VFC incident, 2CH.com had been remarkably clean for a completely open community. After the scandal erupted, however, profanity-filled posts flooded in at astonishing speed. Both those cursing VFC and his followers and the minority defending him were swearing profusely. The board was becoming unrecognizable.

Fearing that the positive community culture they had carefully cultivated would instantly turn toxic, Yoo Jae-won had decided to activate the profanity filtering system.

He immediately began adjusting the permissions on the natural language learning program. From now on, when users clicked the post upload button, their content would first pass through the learning program's verification. Posts containing excessive profanity would be rejected, with the filtered words displayed to the user. Determined swearers might try adding spaces or special characters to bypass the filter, but since this system was based on natural language processing rather than simple keyword matching, it would handle such attempts effectively.

The massive influx of community traffic into the natural language processing program might cause overload, but with the addition of the New York high-performance computing cloud system armed with HPC CPUs, there would be no lag whatsoever.

"I wonder when 3D acceleration chips will evolve to the level of tensor cores."

Yoo Jae-won muttered to himself while monitoring the program and watching the filtering system activate. Even with a combined total of 25,600 servers running at full capacity between the Coyote City and New York data centers, generating immense computational power, it still fell short of his standards. The total processing power currently available didn't even match a single tensor core chip—the deep learning accelerator that would emerge in the mid-21st century.

"Still, the effect is clear."

Once the filtering system activated, the board transformed. The speed of new posts decreased, but the offensive profanity had been effectively eliminated. In particular, posts that mindlessly criticized the ID Group without any logical basis were completely eradicated. Most such attacks began with pure abuse, making them easy targets for the filter.

After leaving the data center, Yoo Jae-won headed to LA. His next schedule was an interview with a broadcast station. Various self-proclaimed experts were appearing on television to comment on the abusing scandal. Yoo Jae-won could hardly sit it out. The station he had agreed to interview with was Fox TV itself. He had drawn his sword to blow up the very heart of negative public opinion.