New Jeans is asking a US court to force Google to reveal an anonymous YouTuber so the person can be prosecuted under South Korea's strict libel laws for posting “false and defamatory videos” about the K-pop group.
In court documents filed last month, NewJeans lawyers asked a California federal judge to issue a subpoena requiring Google to reveal the user's identity. The band wants the information because it is seeking criminal charges in South Korea — which carries far more severe penalties for defamation than under US law.
“The applicants are members of a K-Pop girl group who were attacked by an anonymous person who posts false and defamatory videos on YouTube,” the group's lawyer wrote in the March 27 petition, which Advertising sign taken. “Unfortunately, without the YouTuber's personally identifiable information, the criminal case cannot be fully prosecuted.”
The group is targeting the anonymous owner of a YouTube account called “7th Grade in Middle School,” who NewJeans lawyers say has “engaged in branding or other derisive behavior” and has posted up to 33 defamatory videos that have been viewed over 13 million times. One particularly “derogatory” post reported allegedly claimed that NewJeans member Min-ji Kim was “the eldest daughter of a Vietnamese farmer.”
HYBE, the parent company of NewJeans label ADOR, did not immediately return a request for comment on the legal proceedings. The recent court filings, which were refiled in court last week, were first reported by The New York Times.
The case shows striking differences between free speech protections between the US and South Korea. Under US law, defamation is a civil wrong that can lead to damages, but is severely limited by the First Amendment. To win such a case, public figures like the members of NewJeans would have to prove that the YouTuber knowingly made false statements, a burden that is intentionally difficult to meet.
In South Korea, on the other hand, defamation is a criminal offense that can be “punished by up to seven years of hard labor” and even fully true statements may face criminal penalties. In 2015, a United Nations monitor denounced South Korea's “increasing use of defamation laws to prosecute individuals critical of government action.” In 2022, a US State Department report warned that public figures in Korea had used the country's libel laws to “limit public debate and harass, intimidate or censor private and media expression.”
NewJeans is not the first K-pop group to use these laws. In 2019, HYBE (then Big Hit Entertainment) filed criminal defamation cases against BTS, claiming the targets were behind “personal attacks” on the group. In 2022, Big Hit did it again via “malicious posts” about BTS, asking the group's famous “army” of fans to help gather evidence. YG Entertainment, the label behind BLACKPINK, has also filed its own complaint against “Internet trolls,” accusing them of “spreading baseless rumors about our singers.”
According to recent US court filings, ADOR filed a criminal complaint with police in Seoul in March, but the case has stalled because the label cannot identify the real person behind the YouTube account. The group's lawyers say they sent a request for such information to Google, but the US tech giant refused to hand it over.
A Google representative declined to comment when reached Advertising sign on Thursday. In a policy statement regarding government requests for personal information, the company says: “Google carefully reviews each request to ensure it complies with applicable law. If a request asks for too much information, we try to limit it and in some cases object to providing any information at all.”
