Samsung Reportedly Tried to Suppress a Film Critical of Its Safety Record

Catherine Shu, writing for TechCrunch:

The film, which premiered earlier this month at the Busan International Film Festival, is a fictionalized story about Hwang Yu-mi, a 23-year-old Samsung plant worker who died from acute leukemia in 2007. The film’s lead character, based on her father Hwang Sang-ki, wages a legal battle against a large tech conglomerate called “Jinsung” that very closely resembles Samsung (the film’s title is based on one of the company’s mottos). The names in the film were changed in part to avoid legal action by Samsung. A South Korean court ruled in his favor, finding that Hwang Yu-mi’s leukemia may have been caused or exacerbated by continuous exposure to hazardous chemicals at Samsung’s semiconductor plants.

On Feb. 5, online newspaper NewDaily Biz posted an article about Another Family. As reported by The Verge, the publication’s president, Park Jung-kyu, allegedly then told NewDaily Biz’s editors to delete the piece and ordered them to text apologies to the Samsung executives who had complained.

★ Wednesday, 26 February 2014