HYBE accused of imposing age restrictions on NewJeans’ ‘How Sweet’ MV on YouTube, agency responds

On May 26, the rookie K-pop group NewJeans' fandom Bunnies allegedly accused HYBE of imposing age restrictions on the band's newly released How Sweet music video. It was released on the official YouTube channel of HYBE LABELS.

In response, the agency provided a statement to the media outlet Ilgan Sports and refuted the allegations. The agency stated, as translated by Koreaboo:

"HYBE does not put an age restriction when uploading music videos. YouTube makes that distinction on its own. We will ask YouTube for an explanation of whether the video was restricted and for what reason."

NewJeans made their much-awaited comeback on May 24, 2024, and released their music video, How Sweet, on the HYBE LABELS YouTube channel. It was produced by Min Hee-jin and directed by Heewon Shin.

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HYBE responded that YouTube has imposed age restrictions on NewJeans' latest video, How Sweet

In a statement to the South Korean media outlet Ilgan Sports, HYBE stated his stance and revealed that YouTube placed age and country restrictions on its discretion and that, Hybe had no involvement in the recent act. The record label also revealed that the agency would ask the American online video-sharing platform about it.

It has been claimed by fans that the agency has placed unnecessary age and regional restrictions in fourteen countries, including Columbia, Argentina, Norway, and others.

As a result, they were unable to stream their music video, which ultimately led to a decrease in the YouTube videos for NewJeans How Sweet track. They also accused HYBE of allegedly deleting comments regarding the age-restricted controversy under their music video that had garnered millions of likes.

Bunnies demanded an elaborate statement regarding all the controversies happening to the group and urged them to protect their artists.

The fans also shared that the NewJeans music video was not appearing on HYBE LABEL's YouTube channel as the restricted mode was turned on. They stated that the music video did not contain any adult content and thus demanded the agency to fix the issue as soon as possible.

An X user @newjified also observed that NewJeans faced similar problems in the past when their Right Now teaser was labeled as kids' content after it was released, which eventually prevented fans from commenting. The fan thought that labeling a video as Kids Content and placing age restrictions were in the hands of the owner of a YouTube channel and thus allegedly blamed HYBE for all the things happening to the group.

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More about the girl group

NewJeans is a South Korean five-member group formed by ADOR, a subsidiary owned by HYBE LABELS. They are popular in the South Korean Entertainment industry due to their girl-next-door image and music concepts, which are remains of the 1990s and 2000s. The girl group features five members- Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin, and Hyein.

Featuring the five-member group (Image via @ADOR_NEWJEANS/X)

The group debuted on July 22, 2022, with their single track Attention, which charted as the number-one song on the domestic Circle Digital Charts. The group later released songs, including Hype Boy, Cookie, Super Shy, ETA, Cool with You, single album OMG, Ditto, and others.

The group has also represented Levi's fashion store Musinsa, Olens, contact lens brand, jewelry brand Stonehenge, eyewear brand Carin and named as the global ambassadors for the beverage brand Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Lotte's Pepero, LG Electronics's Gram Laptop and others since their debut in 2022.

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The group will release their Japanese single Supernatural on June 21, 2024, along with the B-side track Right Now.