Assembly education panel to grill platforms on violent content, AI textbook lawsuit at national audit

Education issues on the agenda at this year's National Assembly education committee audit

Platform operators to face scrutiny over 'Yacha Rule' youth protection measures

College application system outage and extended deadline to be examined for fairness

AI textbook damages lawsuit to spark debate over policy rollout and reversal

Education committee summons 19 witnesses and 4 reference persons

A plenary session of the National Assembly's education committee. [Yonhap]

The National Assembly's education committee will use this year's national audit to hold platform companies accountable for the spread of violent content among students — including a trend known as the "Yacha Rule" — and to examine fairness concerns stemming from a college application system outage and subsequent deadline extension.

Lawmakers are also expected to clash over responsibility for a damages lawsuit tied to AI digital textbooks, with the appropriateness of the policy's introduction and subsequent reversal set to come under scrutiny. To examine these issues, the committee has summoned 19 witnesses and four reference persons, including representatives from companies involved.

'Yacha Rule' in the spotlight: platform responsibility for violent content

According to the education committee's national audit plan, the audit will open Wednesday morning at the National Assembly, covering eight institutions including the Ministry of Education, the National Curriculum and Evaluation Institute, the National Institute of Korean History and the National Institute of Special Education. Lawmakers will review major policy progress, budget execution and institutional operations. On Oct. 14, the Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon metropolitan education offices will face scrutiny, followed by Seoul National University, Seoul National University Hospital and 10 other institutions on Oct. 16. Audits of non-metropolitan education offices and national universities are scheduled for Oct. 20 and 21.

A key item on this year's agenda is the so-called "Yacha Rule," a trend in which students imitate combat moves and post footage of the fights on social media. The phenomenon has emerged as a new form of school violence.

As related content spreads across social media platforms, questions about platform operators' responsibility have grown louder. The National Assembly has summoned Jung Jae-hoon, head of ByteDance Korea, which oversees TikTok Korea, and Heo Wook, vice president of Meta Korea, to testify. Lawmakers are expected to press them on whether their platforms adequately monitor and block violent content that negatively affects students.

On Oct. 23, Kim Jong-yun of ScatterLab, Lee Se-young of Wrtn Technologies and Lee Gwan-hyeong of Eleven Labs have been called to appear over concerns about AI chatbot services targeting minors, extending the discussion to the broader question of platform operators' duty to protect young users online.

The headquarters of Uwayapply in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, whose college application system crashed during the early admissions period. [Yonhap]

System crash and extended deadline: relief measures and fairness under review

The college application system outage during the early admissions period is another major flashpoint at this year's audit. Lawmakers will examine why the system went down and whether education authorities responded quickly enough to limit harm to applicants. The committee has called Sung Yun-seok, chief executive of Uwayapply, to appear on Monday to answer questions about the cause of the outage and how the deadline extension was handled.

At the heart of the controversy is the unequal access to competition-rate data during the extended window. Of the universities that extended their deadlines, 17 disclosed competition rates during the additional time. A total of 39 applications were submitted to those universities during the extension. The Ministry of Education recommended that three of those applicants — confirmed to have checked competition rates before submitting — cancel their applications. Critics note, however, that it is difficult to determine whether other applicants also accessed competition data through group chats or other channels.

A central question at the audit will be whether the process of providing relief to affected applicants was fair to those who had already submitted applications before the outage. Lawmakers are also expected to ask whether pre-outage system checks were sufficient and why it took so long to notify universities of the extended deadline.

With the Ministry of Education having extended its special investigation into Uwayapply, the audit is also expected to cover the progress of that probe and where responsibility lies. Measures to prevent a repeat of the chaos ahead of the regular admissions round will likewise be on the agenda.

People Power Party lawmaker Kim Hee-jung, chair of the National Assembly's education committee, delivers opening remarks at a forum on the direction of college admissions in the AI era, held at the National Assembly on Wednesday. [Yonhap]

AI textbooks, high school credit system also on the agenda

AI digital textbooks will also come under scrutiny at the audit. The committee has summoned Park Seung-jae, head of the education innovation research division at the Korean Educational Development Institute, to testify Wednesday on the legal liability surrounding a state damages lawsuit.

About 10 textbook publishers — including Dong-A Publishing, YBM and Visang Education — filed a damages lawsuit in June, arguing they had invested in developing AI digital textbooks in good faith based on government policy, only to suffer losses when the materials' legal status was downgraded to supplementary educational resources. The total value of the claims is believed to run into the hundreds of billions of won.

Key questions at the audit will include whether the effectiveness and classroom readiness of the AI textbooks were sufficiently verified before their introduction, and whether adequate measures were taken to minimize losses and disruption caused by the policy reversal. Beyond the court's eventual ruling on damages liability, lawmakers are expected to debate the appropriateness of how the policy was pursued and how the budget was spent.

Other issues on the agenda include protections for teachers' educational activities, safety measures for field trips, and the operation of the high school credit system now in its second year. The procedural legitimacy and assessment fairness of proposed college entrance exam reforms — including the introduction of essay and short-answer questions — will also be examined, along with the consistency between long-term national education development plans and existing systems. Lawmakers will further scrutinize the restructuring of local education finance grants, the criteria for selecting priority universities under the "10 Seoul National Universities" initiative, and support plans for the remaining regional national universities.

brunch@heraldcorp.com