Fernández 1

Andrea L. Fernández

Professor Robert Berkman

NMDM 5312A Media Ethics

20 April 2022

오징어 게임:1 Ethics, Privacy and Technology in Squid Game

Abstract: This paper analyzes the role of ethics, privacy and technology in Netflix’s South

Korean survival drama, Squid Game (2021). The show’s popularity hinges on its mordant

critique of capitalism, particularly the global disappearance of the middle class. This tension

between personal and communal survival intersects with despair, surveillance and the illusion of

consent.

Keywords: Squid Game, South Korea, Netflix, Marxism, ethics, privacy, media, technology.

I. Introduction

Squid Game, the South Korean survival drama created by Hwang Dong-hyuk for Netflix,

premiered on September 17, 2021. By November of the same year, the show had amassed 1.65

billion watch hours within the first 28 days of its release, making it the service’s most watched

series to date (Spangler). The story follows 456 indebted “volunteers” who “choose” to play

childhood games. The twist lies in that each player’s death adds ₩100 million ($8,949.78) to the

potential ₩45.6 billion grand prize ($3,742,636.82)--winner or winners take all. Divorced father

Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), is our window into the abyss as player 456. After being kidnapped,
1
오징어 게임, pronounced “Ojing-eo Geim.”
 Fernández 2

he awakes within an secret island complex where six death games take place. The contestants’

clothing is replaced with teal tracksuits while they are unconscious, a chilling reminder that, in

Squid Game, bodies are not persons. They are living currency. The games are directed by the

Front Man to entertain billionaire sponsors, the VIPs, who wear golden masks.

The show’s social critique hinges on capitalism’s systemic cannibalization of a shrinking

middle class within South Korea and beyond--a process intercepted by real-world concerns over

the ethics of privacy and technology. The character’s roles on the island are mirrored in the

costume design, which in turn parodies capitalistic class structures problematized by Marxist

scholarship. Current ethical privacy and technology concerns are reflected in contestant’s

“agreement” to play childhood games to the death. Despair, surveillance, and the illusion of

consent perpetrate the ever increasing power that user-generated content allocates to algorithmic

profit-driven media behemoths like Google, Apple and Meta. The survivalism genre’s dystopian

call to action--to remedy asymmetrical distribution of wealth and power--converges with our

collective impotence at being trapped in a tiered social system where few have lots, and many

have little.

II. Squid Game’s Caste System: From Disposable to Untouchable

The ethics of “consent to play” permeate the entire narrative of Squid Game. Through a

color-coded caste system, characters are divided into three categories corresponding with the

amount of power they wield over other lives. Unilateral adherence to socially contractual roles

legitimizes the game’s systemic violence. As previously mentioned, the indebted contestants

wear teal tracksuits, each with a number between 1 and 456. In Marxist scholarship,2 the lowest

tier of characters corresponds with the working class proletariat. Essential, blue and immigrant

2
“Squid Game’s Caste System” chart is based on the “Marxist Approach” chapter in Critical Media Studies:
An Introduction by Brian L. Ott & Robert L. Mack, pp. 24–60.
 Fernández 3

workers constitute this population, always the most numerous in both the show and

contemporary societies. Seong Gi-hun, in episode 5, “A Fair World,” mentions that watch duty in

the communal dormitory reminds him of participating in the 77-day long Ssangyong Motors

workers strike in 2009.3 Unionized factory workers like Seong Gi-hun have been the

quintessential agents of proletariat activism since the nineteenth century.

Squid Game’s Color Caste System

Characters Symbols Class Role Marxist scholarship

TEAL

Contestants Numbers Destitute, indebted, Survive Squid Game and Proletariat - essential
1-456 formerly middle collect the cash price workers, blue-collar
class representing each peer’s workers, immigrants
death.

MAGENTA

Masked ⬤ worker PERHAPS also Must remain masked or die, Petit bourgeoisie -
Guards destitute, indebted, eat/sleep along in cells, cook, merchants and white collar
▲soldier formerly middle
class
clean, herd and kill
uncooperative/disqualified
workers

contestants. Led by Front

GOLD

Masked Lion Oligarchs & Billionaires financing and Bourgeoisie - sometimes

The second largest group of characters--the petit bourgeoisie--are the guards. Although

they all wear magenta jumpsuits, the designs on their helmets differentiate them in terms of rank

3
“Amid August heatwaves, yellow tear-gas liquid cascaded down on us from the sky. Swooping police
choppers whipped up wind sufficient to pull umbrellas from our feeble hands. Riot police scaled the factory
fences like invading cockroaches. Armed police commands fired rubber bullets and stormed the rooftop of the
factory from freight containers pulled up by giant cranes. They brandished their clubs over our heads as they
chased us. Police were trampling us, beating us, and continuing to beat us even after we fell unconscious. We
were flipping and tumbling like origami in the ddakji game that a mysterious recruiter used to attract
contestants in Squid Game” (Chang-Kun).
 Fernández 4

and duty. Higher tiers correspond with an increase in shape angles (circle/worker,

triangle/soldier, square/manager). It is no accident that the Front Man’s mask has the most

angles, reminiscent of Cubism, to underline his leadership. Merchants and professional white

collar workers align with the masked guards in that perhaps they are also destitute, indebted, and

formerly middle class. Just like the players, the guards are hostages. Their “consent” to

participate is a product of systemic violence that strips everyone but the wealthiest of personal

sovereignty. In episode 3, “The Man with the Umbrella,” a player who is about to be executed

takes a guard’s firearm and unmasks him, revealing a young man barely out of high school.

Overwhelmed, the contestant shoots himself. The youth is executed in cold blood for revealing

his identity.

The game’s bourgeoise sponsors, whose golden masks each depict a different power

animal (lion, bull, panther, eagle), arrive on the island to wager in person during episode 7,

“VIPs.” The billionaires watch the spectacle from a private suite, where we witness a bacchanal

of disregard for human life ripe with toxic masculinity. The evocation of totem animals, on the

one hand, recalls heraldry. On the other hand, adopting a powerful symbol makes corporations

distinctive, memorable and profitable. Emblems are essential to social stratification. Whether

oligarchs or multinational corporations, emblematized social sectors that own the means of

production also control the media professions.4 We, the teals and the magentas, are toys for the

powerful, implies the show’s writer. “I wanted to create something that would resonate not just

for Korean people but globally," says Hwang Dong-hyuk, in an article for The Guardian. "I do

believe that the overall global economic order is unequal and that around 90% of the people

believe that it's unfair. During the pandemic, poorer countries can't get their people vaccinated.

4
See Table 2.2 “The Big Six US-based media conglomerates (2018),” about the media industry’s vertical
integration, in Critical Media Studies, 33-4.
 Fernández 5

They're contracting viruses on the streets and even dying. So I did try to convey a message about

modern capitalism. As I said, it's not profound” (Stuart).

III. Ethics, Privacy and Technological Concerns in Squid Game

A. Despair

The asymmetrical economic world order Hwang Dong-hyuk references thrives in the

public availability of personal and financial information. Data-gathering enables the Squid Game

algorithm to target potential contestants based on their degree of despair. In “Privacy and

Participation in the Cloud: Implications in Google Privacy Practices and Public

Communications,” Robert Bodle details the threats to privacy inherent in cloud computing, or

Web 2.0. This “new” 2010s-2020s Web 2.0 differs from the 1990s-2000s Web 1.0 in that

user-generated content sites, social networks, and microblogs5 increasingly depend on sharing

personal information while downplaying privacy protection (157). The algorithmic selection that

informs Squid Game is a reflection of a contestant’s online presence built from consensual

sharing of personal information.

The aggregated data operates in the same fashion as targeted advertisement, which, were

it not for public pressure, would be completely devoid of ethical boundaries. Irina Raicu argues

that “even users in a single region of the world (or a single room) are already likely to be shown

very different search results--unless they've actively taken steps to turn off the "personalized

search" that Google implements as its default setting.” Most people do not know that one may

turn off Google’s personalized search, let alone how to disengage it. In the pivotal scene where

Seong Gi-hun recalls the Ssangyong Motors strike, we learn that in 2009 the company

5
Since the publication of Ethics of Emerging Media in 2011, the distinction between user-generated content
sites (YouTube), social networks (Facebook) and microblogs (Twitter) is now obsolete. YouTube, Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, SnapChat, Google Spaces, Canva, TikTok, etc. are all user-generated
social network microblogs. Perhaps it is time to upgrade the phenomenon to Web 3.0, or the hyper vertical
integration of the internet.
 Fernández 6

unexpectedly laid off 2,646 employees to facilitate profit transfers to global investors, which led

to 77-days of worker unrest. The strike and its aftermath, which correlates with the Web 2.0

years, played out online. The workers’ personal information generated from the event made

thousands “unemployable” by association, leading many to commit suicide.6 In their case,

omitting ethical privacy protections for user-generated content continues to be lethal. Seong

Gi-hun’s algorithmically quantifiable despair, not the man, is the protagonist of Squid Game.

B. Surveillance

Despair’s handmaiden in our increasingly authoritarian world is surveillance. In Squid

Game, surveillance is employed to learn about a contestant’s relations, patterns, movements,

longings and fears, when the information is not publicly available. Katherine G. Vazquez, in

“The Right to Be Forgotten Does Not Apply outside the European Union: A Proposal for

Worldwide Application,” asserts that Google and other “controllers” are a “quasi-judicial

authority” because they determine “what constitutes private information or not” (2021).

Vazquez’s proposal analyzes the right granted by the European Union to have search engines

delist certain results based on a person’s name upon request. The “right to be forgotten” is a far

cry from the lack of ethics-informed government regulation over personal privacy in

communication technologies in both the USA and South Korea.

For one particular contestant--no. 067--the omnipresence of surveillance within and

beyond Squid Game has always been a matter of life and death. Kang Sae-byeok (HoYeon Jung)

is a North Korean defector. Risking her life in Squid Game is preferable to constantly evading

detection by Pyongyang’s secret service. North Korea is the infamous antithesis to ethics in

6
“Thirteen SsangYong workers and family members died by suicide as a result of this anti-union oppression
between 2009 and 2011. One worker’s final statement read, “My salary was reduced dramatically, and it is
painful to feed my kids ramen (instant noodles) because I can’t afford to buy rice.” Another worker told his
wife, “I am leaving you debts only until the last moment. I am so sorry.” Between 2009 and 2018, another 30
SsangYong workers committed suicide for similar reasons” (Ji).
 Fernández 7

technology and personal privacy. Defectors so dread the penalty of torture and slow execution

that suicide is preferable to being caught. North Korea hunts down defectors within South Korea

and other sovereign nations to extradite them for execution. Kang Sae-byeok is a survivalist on

the run, successfully evading the North Korean government for years, yet Squid Game’s

sophisticated algorithm (like Google) has no problem finding her. This for-profit extra-legal

gladiatorial travesty complete with golden Caesars operates with a surveillance system far more

sophisticated than sovereign nations’ communication technologies. Governments, after all, run

on Google.

C. Consent

The tension between individual vs. communal survival becomes a pointless spectacle

when “the illusion of “choice” justifies all manner of exploitation” (Quinn). It might be easy to

dismiss self-exploitation as fiction; however, Hwang Dong-hyuk achieved a series that resonates

globally for three very real reasons. First, we experience catharsis from watching the contestants

and guards play to the death. That “phew, not me” is a pressure valve that relieves tensions to

make tedious life slightly more livable. Second, over the last four decades the middle class has

shrunk to non-existence, widening the wealth gap between have and have-nots. Third, Seong

Gi-hun’s desperate choice to win the prize or die trying is not unthinkable, it is chillingly

plausible.

Life, at this juncture of “consent,” loses all meaning. In Squid Game, three simple terms

and conditions apply. In this code of ethics, players,

1. Must compete in the game,

2. Will be terminated if they stop competing, and

3. Can terminate the game if the majority of contestants agree.

In episode 2, “Hell,” survivors of the first game put the third clause to a vote and narrowly

canceled the game, with everyone returning to their daily lives. For Seong Gi-hun and Kang

Sae-byeok, desperation and surveillance mean their bodies are the only commodity they have

left. Risking death is preferable to dying slowly by a thousand cuts in a capitalist world. We, in

turn, agree to a Squid Game reality of exchanging personal information, habits and patterns with

controllers for “free” services where we, the users, are the traded commodity. In this context,

users assume the responsibility for their own data protections through the “transparency of

choice” (Bodle 157).

IV. Conclusion

Former Ssangyong Motors factory worker, Lee Chang-Kun, reacts to Squid Game with

frustration, “even empty[ness]... Inequality in my country now appears solidified beyond the

point of reversal, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, while the story of the

Ssangyong workers is a disposable commodity in a Netflix show.” The survivors of the 2009

workers’ strike, through the show’s global success, are worth 1.65 billion watch hours of profit

for the streaming service. To date, Netflix has not translated any of the revenue into assisting the

community most affected by the historical events that inform Squid Game. Capitalism’s systemic

cannibalization of dilapidated global middle classes overlaps with contemporary ethical concerns

over privacy, technology and media. In a world where many increasingly have very little, and a

shrinking few gradually own more and more of the means of production, the Web 2.0 (3.0?)7

buys us little by little with every like, share, and subscribe.

7
See footnote 5.
 Fernández 9

Works Cited

Bodle, Robert. “Privacy and Participation in the Cloud. Implications in Google Privacy Practices

and Public Communications.” The Ethics of Emerging Media. Information, Social Norms

and New Media Technology, edited by Bruce E. Drushel and Kathleen German, The

Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011, pp. 155–74.

Chang-Kun, Lee. “Squid Game’s Strike Flashbacks Were Modeled on Our Real-Life Factory

Occupation.” Jacobinmag.com, 1 Nov. 2021,

www.jacobinmag.com/2021/11/squid-game-ssangyong-dragon-motor-strike-south-korea.

Hwang, Dong. “Squid Game | Netflix Official Site.” Netflix, 17 Sept. 2021,

www.netflix.com/title/81040344.

Jeffries, Stuart. “Squid Game’s Creator: ‘I’m Not That Rich. It’s Not like Netflix Paid Me a

Bonus.’” The Guardian, 26 Oct. 2021,

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/oct/26/squid-games-creator-rich-netflix-bonus-

hwang-dong-hyuk.

Ji, Minsun. “The Real-Life Auto Strike behind the Runaway Netflix Hit Squid Game.” Labor

Notes, 13 Oct. 2021,

labornotes.org/blogs/2021/10/real-life-auto-strike-behind-runaway-netflix-hit-squid-game

Johannesen, Richard L., et al. Ethics in Human Communication. Long Grove, Ill. Waveland

Press, 2008.

Ott, Brian L., and Robert L. Mack. “Marxist Approach.” Critical Media Studies: An

Introduction, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2014, pp. 24–60.

Quinn, Karl. “We Are All VIPs: Who Are the Real Villains of Squid Game?” The Age, 5 Oct.

2021,

www.theage.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/we-are-all-vips-who-are-the-real-villains-of-squ

id-game-20211005-p58xgz.html.

Raicu, Irina. The Right to Be Forgotten or the Right to Edit? June 2014,

www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/internet-ethics/resources/the-right-to-be-forgotten-or-the-

right-to-edit/.scu.edu.

Spangler, Todd. “‘Squid Game’ Is Decisively Netflix No. 1 Show of All Time with 1.65 Billion

Hours Streamed in First Four Weeks, Company Says.” Variety, 16 Nov. 2021,

www.variety.com/2021/digital/news/squid-game-all-time-most-popular-show-netflix-123

5113196/.

Vazquez, Katherine G. The Right to Be Forgotten Does Not Apply Outside the European Union:

A Proposal for Worldwide Application. 2021, pp. 146–66. swlaw.edu.