April 20, 2024

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Former chief executive of Korean internet giant Kakao Lee Sir-goo has been acquitted of charges alleging that he was responsible for negligence regarding child pornography on KakaoGroup, a private messenger app that is now defunct. 

The allegations had effectively forced him to resign from the top post in 2015.

Former Kakao chief Lee Sir-goo Yonhap

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On Feb. 19, the Suwon District Court cited lack of evidence that Lee, 53, was directly responsible for child pornography on KakaoGroup solely because he was CEO at the time.

The court did rule that Kakao as a corporation was to blame for the circulation of child pornography, saying the company failed to use efficient technology for detecting and filtering keywords that carry obscene language.

However, Korean companies cannot be indicted for such law violation. 

Under the Protection of Children and Youth Against Sex Offences Act, online service providers are obliged to detect, delete and prevent further circulation of child and juvenile pornography. Failure to do so will lead to the online service provider representative’s imprisonment with labor for up to three years or a fine of up to 20 million won (US$17,812)

In December 2018, prosecutors demanded a 10 million won fine on Lee for failing to prevent the circulation of obscene contents among KakaoGroup users. The prosecution indicted him without arrest in November 2015, causing him to step down immediately.

Lee was accused of being negligent in efforts to block the circulation of 745 inappropriate contents involving child pornography, leaving some 7,000 users of KakaoGroup exposed to such contents from June to August 2014. He was sent to court trials as a representative of Kakao, which operates Korea’s most popular mobile messenger app KakaoTalk.

Lee led Kakao from 2011 to 2015. He is currently the head of Dunamu, a fintech arm of Kakao that operates a cryptocurrency exchange Upbit and mobile stock market information provider app Kakao Stock.

KakaoGroup services were terminated in April 2018.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)