An Yu-jin, a member of the K-pop group IVE / Newsis

Starship Entertainment apologized over a controversy involving a deepfake image of An Yu-jin, a member of the K-pop group IVE, that was shared on its Chinese social media account.

The agency said on Wednesday, “We sincerely apologize to An Yu-jin and her fans, who must have been deeply hurt by the severe negligence of an employee managing our Chinese social media account.”

Starship acknowledged its failure in oversight. “This incident occurred due to a lack of proper management on our part. The employee responsible has been given the highest level of disciplinary action and removed from related duties," it said. "We will thoroughly overhaul our internal management system to ensure such incidents never happen again.”

The company said that it personally apologized to An and pledged to minimize further harm, saying, “We will do everything possible to prevent additional damage from spreading.”

The controversy arose on Jan. 9 when Starship's Chinese social media account shared an artificial intelligence-generated deepfake image of An. Although the agency initially explained that the image had been shared during an attempt to report malicious posts, this did little to quell the backlash from fans.

IVE dropped the prerelease title track “Rebel Heart” from their new album "IVE EMPATHY" on Tuesday. The group is set to make its official comeback on Feb. 3.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.