Kakao apologizes for using wheelchair symbol to depict network errors

By Park Jae-hyuk

Kakao has apologized after it was revealed that one of its software engineers used the international wheelchair symbol to indicate network issues during the information technology (IT) firm's three-day developer conference last month.

During a session on its billing system on Oct. 24, the presenter explained that Kakao's services had experienced unexpected errors on Nov. 11, 2021, due to a surge in the use of KakaoTalk’s gift function on Pepero Day — a successful marketing campaign here that has led a large section of the Korean public to buy the popular chocolate-covered biscuit snack for friends, partners, co-workers and family members.

The wheelchair symbol appeared for a few seconds during an explanation prompt for the errors caused by the function that enables the mobile messenger app’s users to send and receive gift coupons.

In response, Kakao promptly removed the presentation footage and related materials from the official website and YouTube channel for the conference.

“We sincerely apologize for misusing the symbol in the presentation material for one of the conference’s sessions,” the IT firm said. “Although we have the guidelines to ban discriminatory expressions, we missed it during our censorship of the material.”

Kakao vowed to examine its presentation materials more thoroughly to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents.

Over the past few years, the company has promoted its efforts to make its services more accessible to people with disabilities.

In 2022, it became the first Korean IT company to appoint a digital accessibility officer.

During this year’s Day of Persons with Disabilities on April 20, Kakao CEO Chung Shin-a and Digital Accessibility Officer Kim Hye-il attended a ceremony for the launch of Kakao Accessibility Supporters. The team was established to engage with users with disabilities and work toward improving accessibility across the company's services.

“Listening to people with inconveniences is the beginning of lowering barriers,” the Kakao CEO said at that time. “To minimize digital blind spots, we will listen to our users with disabilities and seek measures to improve our services.”