Google Korea hit for mishandling harmful content

By Baek Byung-yeul

Google Korea's headquarter office in Seoul. / Korea Times file

Google Korea has been blamed for its lukewarm attitude toward preventing the spread of harmful and inappropriate information after the company was found to have implemented less than 10 percent of corrective action requested by the telecommunications regulator, according to a lawmaker, Monday.

Rep. Park Kwang-on of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) found 19,409 cases of illegal and harmful information on Google Korea's services such as YouTube from 2015 to August 2019, but the company had completed 9.6 percent of its corrective actions, removing only 1,867 items.

Along with other content providers such as Naver, Kakao, Facebook and Twitter, Google has been employing the KCC's self-monitoring system since 2015 under which the company conducts its own screening to ensure its service remains clean.

Claiming that Google has not carried out its responsibilities, the lawmaker urged the government to come up with a measure to force foreign companies to meet their social responsibilities.

“Google Korea has maintained a passive stance toward the prevention of distribution of illegal information,” Park said. “There should be a measure that mandates foreign companies to carry out their social responsibilities just like domestic companies.

“Expert analysis showed that Google has abused its status as an overseas-based company, relying on its self-guideline system to dodge regulations.”

With exposed cases of illegal and harmful information reaching 4,102 up to August, Park said that figure could surpass 6,000 by the end of 2019.

Content promoting prostitution or pornography on Google services has increased by more than 40 percent year-on-year.

“The KCC requested local internet service providers from January to August to remove 2,504 items related with prostitution or porn on Google services,” the lawmaker said. “The figure is expected to be 3,756 at the end of 2019, which is a 41.4 percent increase from 2,655 of 2018.”

Park added that Google Korea was also ordered to remove about 1,000 discriminatory, degrading, brutal, hatred and privacy-infringing items.

In response, Google Korea said it has been taking strong measures to reduce the circulation of inappropriate content.

“For instance, on YouTube, we have been thoroughly reviewing videos reported by users and they are removed if they violate rules. We also suspend the accounts of users who repeatedly violate our guidelines,” said a Google Korea official, adding the company puts transparency at the forefront.