If you search for ‘Sohn Kee-chung’ or ‘Kitei Son’ on Google’s English-language site, all of the knowledge graphs on the first screen of the results will appear as ‘Sohn Kee-chung’. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Apr. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — Google, which previously identified Sohn Kee-chung, a gold medalist in the marathon at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, as ‘Kitei Son,’ his name under the Japanese occupation of Korea, has finally corrected it to the Korean name, according to the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) on Wednesday.
If you search for ‘Sohn Kee-chung’ or ‘Kitei Son’ on Google’s English-language site, all of the knowledge graphs on the first screen of the results will appear as ‘Sohn Kee-chung’.
Since 2012, Google has provided a so-called knowledge graph service that shows information collected directly on the right side of the screen in the form of an encyclopedia when users enter words into the search window.
The graph is provided by Google by compiling its own information, including data from Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia.
VANK discovered that Son’s name was marked ‘Kitei Son’ on the graph on April 25 last year.
At the time, Google correctly labeled it ‘Sohn Kee-chung’ in Korean searches, but it showed a double standard to introduce it as ‘Kitei Son’ on English-language websites.
In response, VANK continued to send letters of protest to Google asking the company to change ‘Kitei Son’ to ‘Sohn Kee-chung’, while also calling on Google Korea to push for a correction.
“Google’s failure to correct this is an insult to the sentiments and emotions of Koreans who have experienced Japanese imperialism, so I asked them to correct it for a year,” said Park Ki-tae, head of VANK.
“It’s a good thing that I finally found Sohn’s name, and it’s a recovery of Sohn’s dream that I wanted to be remembered as a Korean and a Korean name.”
VANK said it will use the achievement as leverage to more actively promote Korea to global portal sites, world history textbooks and encyclopedias.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
