Dressing down and dancing, making loud noises, insulting police officers, and some even using knives to injure others during live broadcasts. In order to gain traffic and rewards, a group of online hosts in South Korea have turned the streets into performance venues, forcing the local government to take action. However, after a year has passed, these hosts still refuse to leave.
In recent years, the area around Fuku-cho Station in Fuku-cho, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea has become a popular spot for vulgar online live broadcasts. Despite measures taken by the local government, Korean media recently conducted an investigation and found that some hosts still gather near the station from early morning.
The banner hung by Fu Chuan City Government read: Illegal creators, stop threatening the safety of citizens and the livelihoods of merchants.
A 47-year-old resident, Park Hui Lan (pinyin), has one six-year-old son. She complains that since afternoon, the food street near the station has had a number of people live-streaming. She is not only worried about being filmed but also unwilling for her child to witness this chaos.
In order to attract viewers to give tips, some streamers dance with bare arms in public places, sing loudly, and even mock the police who come to handle the situation. Previously, a female streamer in her 30s was suspected of stabbing a man during a live broadcast and was arrested for attempted murder.
Local merchants also find it difficult to cope with this disturbance.
A 39-year-old merchant named Kim Myeong-seok, who has been running a meat store for 10 years, recalled that during the worst period, there were people drinking and live-streaming on the streets everywhere, and the noise was unbearable.
In September 2025, FuChuan City announced a special rectification campaign, stating that vulgar live streaming severely damages the city's image and affects the safety of residents and the livelihoods of merchants.
To drive away the hosts who have been residing there for a long time, the government removed the seats from the places where they often gather, installed barriers along the streets, and increased police and volunteer patrols.
The rectification has achieved certain results. Data released by the FuChuan City Government shows that the number of related complaints around the FuChuan Station has decreased from 77 in the second half of last year to 22 in the first half of this year, a decrease of 71.4%.
However, some hosts still do not wish to leave. The 36-year-old host Yin explained that he chose FuChuan precisely because there are many peers in this area, which makes it easy for them to compete for traffic.
"At first, nobody was watching, but as long as they appeared on other streamers' camera, they could promote themselves." He said, this promotion effect was quite obvious.
Therefore, Yin, who originally lived in other cities, even rented a house in Fuchuan, staying there for two or three months each time.
A sixty-year-old woman who has worked as a cleaner at Fukuchan Station for 11 years said that she does not oppose quiet live streams. However, some hosts wear strange clothing and behave recklessly and loudly in the square, which makes people feel scared. She is worried that they might harm passersby.
