Kakao Presents Digital Safety Achievements at UN Headquarters Meeting

Kakao announced on the 10th (local time) that it presented policies and cases for digital safety at the 'UN Counter-Terrorism Office-Tech Companies Consultation Meeting' held at the UN Headquarters in New York, USA. This meeting was hosted by the UN Counter-Terrorism Office under the Security Council to prepare non-binding guidelines for the prevention and response to the misuse of ICT for terrorist purposes.

The meeting covered sharing best practices of companies within the tech industry for digital safety, establishing opinions related to the preparation of guidelines, and directions for development. Kakao participated online and sequentially introduced its digital safety policies to prevent the distribution of harmful content, proactive response cases using technologies such as AI, and a civil society cooperation model for responding to hate speech.

Kakao introduced its philosophy of 'digital safety,' which values freedom of expression while also not neglecting the protection of users' safety. Dr. Suwon Kim from Kakao's Policy Team, who has led the practical work on hate speech response policies, said, “Kakao values the importance of free communication and freedom of expression, but actively responds through policies and technologies to content and hate speech that deepen social conflicts, infringe human rights, and pose risks of leading to extreme violence.”

Kakao also shared the case of ‘SafeBot,’ which applies the digital safety philosophy to AI technology. SafeBot is a function that automatically filters content violating posting operation policies within Kakao services by analyzing it with AI technology. Since its application to the news comment service in 2020, it has been applied to the portal Daum and KakaoView, among others. After the introduction of SafeBot, malicious comments have decreased to about one-third of the previous level, showing effective results.

A civil society cooperation model to eradicate hate speech, a global concern, was also introduced. Kakao established the ‘Kakao Principles for Eradicating Hate Speech’ in 2021 through cooperation with the National Human Rights Commission, academic experts, and civic groups, and is currently advancing related technologies and policies. The pioneering hate speech response practices in Korea have led to the production of a hate speech ‘coding book’ together with academic and social experts. This work aims to prepare clear and specific criteria for identifying hate speech and corresponding training data using technologies such as AI.

Kakao also shared the publication of a ‘Transparency Report,’ which autonomously discloses rapid user relief procedures and related efforts to guarantee freedom of expression and minimize infringement of user rights.

Based on this meeting and separate consultations with civil society and academia, the UN Counter-Terrorism Office plans to publish non-binding guidelines on the misuse of information and communication technologies by terrorists, subject to approval by the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Office.

Daewon Kim, head of Kakao’s Policy Team, said, “By attending this meeting, we were able to share Kakao’s various activities to create a safe digital world with global tech companies and the UN,” and added, “Kakao will continue to fulfill the social responsibilities that IT companies should have and steadily strive for the health of the digital ecosystem.”

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