Editorial & AI policy

This page is the standard we hold ourselves to. If an article on this site falls short of it, that’s a bug — tell us.

1. Purpose

Future of Korea exists to answer questions about Korea completely and accurately for readers who don’t read Korean. Every article should leave a reader able to do something: understand a number, make a decision, fill in a form, or ask a better question.

We do not publish content whose primary purpose is to rank in search. If a piece would not be useful to a reader who arrived by accident, it doesn’t run.

2. Sourcing

Primary sources first. Facts come from the institution that produced them:

• Macro data — Bank of Korea (ECOS), Statistics Korea (KOSIS)
• Markets — Korea Exchange (KRX), Financial Supervisory Service (DART), company disclosures
• Trade — Korea Customs Service, KITA
• Immigration and visas — Ministry of Justice / HiKorea, Korea Immigration Service
• Tax — National Tax Service; Health insurance — NHIS; Pensions — NPS
• Policy — the ministry that issued it, in its own release

Dated figures. Every number carries the period it refers to and the date we checked it. “Korea’s fertility rate is 0.75” is useless; “0.75 in 2024, per Statistics Korea’s February 2025 release” is a fact a reader can verify.

Linked. Where a source is publicly accessible, we link it in the Sources section of the article. Korean-language sources are linked and identified as Korean.

No laundering. We do not state a fact on the authority of another outlet’s summary of it. If we can’t reach the underlying source, we attribute explicitly (“as reported by X”) or leave it out.

3. Accuracy and uncertainty

• Where estimates differ, we give the range and say who produced each figure.
• Forecasts are labelled as forecasts, attributed, and dated.
• We distinguish what is announced from what is legislated from what is in force. In Korean policy coverage this distinction does most of the work.
• We do not round in a direction that makes a story better.

4. Use of AI — what is and isn’t allowed

We use AI tools for research assistance, structuring, drafting and language editing. We are open about this because readers are entitled to know how what they’re reading was produced.

AI is permitted to: gather and summarise source material; propose structure; produce a first draft from verified inputs; suggest edits for clarity; generate the abstract artwork on the site.

AI is not permitted to: be the authority for any fact. No figure, date, statute, visa requirement, ticker, or quotation reaches publication on the strength of a model’s output. Every such claim is checked by a human against the primary source before it runs.

Human review is mandatory. No article publishes without a human editor having read it end to end, verified its claims against the linked sources, and taken responsibility for it. Volume never overrides this: we would rather publish nothing on a given day than publish something unverified.

No synthetic authority. We do not invent bylines, credentials, headshots, personal anecdotes, or “expert quotes”. Articles are published under the editorial desk because that is literally who wrote them.

Imagery. Illustrations on this site are procedurally generated abstract artwork, produced by our own code. They are decorative. We do not publish photorealistic AI images of real people, places or events, and we do not present any generated image as documentary.

5. Independence

Advertising is sold programmatically through Google AdSense. Advertisers do not see articles before publication, cannot commission or veto coverage, and have no relationship with the editorial desk. Ad units are visually distinct and labelled “Advertisement”.

Where an article discusses a company that may plausibly advertise on the site, that changes nothing about what we write. If we ever accept sponsored or affiliate content, it will be labelled as such at the top of the page, in the same size type as the body text.

6. Corrections

See the corrections policy. In short: we fix errors quickly, in public, with a note saying what changed and when.

7. Updates and freshness

Evergreen explainers — visa rules, tax bands, how-to guides — are reviewed on a schedule and after any rule change. The “Updated” date on an article is real: it changes only when the content changes, never to game a freshness signal.

8. Privacy and reader data

We collect as little as possible and explain what advertising partners collect. See the privacy policy and cookie policy.

9. Complaints

Editorial complaints go to editor@futureofkorea.com with CORRECTION or LEGAL in the subject. We respond in writing.