Kakao Produces 'Coding Book' to Address Hate Speech

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Kakao is strengthening its efforts to create a healthy and safe digital space. It is creating development guidelines to prevent unintentional hate speech from being included in emoticons, advertisements, and various content. Hate speech refers to acts that discriminate against or unilaterally insult specific targets based on origin (country, region, etc.), race, appearance, disability or illness, religion, gender, and so on, or adjust prejudice against them.

On the 31st, Kakao announced that it will produce a ‘Coding Book’ to respond to hate speech together with experts from academia and related organizations. A Coding Book is a guideline containing definitions, principles, and judgment criteria that can be referenced when converting collected data into an analyzable form. This project is part of ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) management and aims to fulfill social responsibility as a digital company, with completion expected in the first half of next year.

This project is a continuation of the ‘Kakao Principles for Eradicating Hate Speech’ established in January 2021. From January 2020 for about a year, Kakao worked with the National Human Rights Commission, the Korean Association for Media and Law, and the Media Advisory Committee to establish these principles and published a record of the related discussions. It was the first domestic company to formalize hate speech response principles and applied them to the operation of major services such as emoticons and advertisements.

The Coding Book production involves a research team centered on the Korean Association for Media and Law. Kakao’s hate speech eradication advisory group regularly supervises and reviews the research process. The advisory group includes Chair Professor Jina Bae of the Department of Visual Studies at Kongju National University, Professor Sua Kim of the Department of Communication at Seoul National University, Professor Youngseop Shim of the Department of Media, Video, and Public Relations at Kyung Hee Cyber University, Language Information Curator Heejung Yoo of the National Institute of the Korean Language, and Dr. Seunghyun Lee of the Law Research Institute at Yonsei University.

Since hate speech in digital spaces is recognized as an issue requiring in-depth social discussion and consensus building, the results of this Coding Book production project are expected to have a high level of reliability and universality.

Kakao plans to apply the completed Coding Book to AI technologies that enhance the healthiness of online content and comment spaces, such as the ‘Safe Bot’ applied to the portal Daum. It plans to build learning data that identifies hate speech and sequentially apply it to actual services. In addition, Kakao will make the Coding Book publicly available so that not only Kakao’s technologies and services but also external companies and organizations can freely utilize it.

Meanwhile, Kakao has continuously worked to strengthen technologies, services, and policies that respond to hate speech in digital spaces. Recently, it prepared the ‘KakaoTalk Safety Guide’ to help users use KakaoTalk safely.

Daewon Kim, head of Kakao’s Human Rights and Technology Ethics Team, said, “Digital safety is a fundamental element of protecting user human rights, and Kakao intends to take the lead in respecting human rights unique to digital companies and fulfilling social responsibilities,” adding, “We will continue to do our best to maintain a healthy digital space and ecosystem through cooperation with various stakeholders including society, academia, and related organizations.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.