Korean portal site Naver.com is now being forced to defend itself against allegations of pro-government bias, manipulating top search word lists and banning protest-related keywords in comments.
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11 Comments
When Naver even gets attacked for not towing the line, then you know the witch hunt is on. Some Koreans are starting to politely call this “populism” but I call it paranoia and hysteria verging on self destruct.
No “cm”, this is still a propaganda war; a war over media control. Naver is owned by NHN, who contributed to LMB’s campaign. Read here.
MBC’s PD program did one of their attack shows on NHN as well.
A lot of us are going to have to rethink what we said about the Red Guards from China this spring.
Once again this just shows that the people who are protesting refuse to acknowledge any opposing viewpoint. They will attack it with all means available. Direct democracy my ass.
#3 correct!
This whole idea of neo-Red Guards is making me very uneasy.
The cultural revolution was an absolute disaster for China!
The idiots are shouting that ‘this is democracy’ when it is absolutely not.
So, not only do these morons need to “learn about science”, they also need to learn about civics!
Something I’ve long wished that the Marmot’s Hole would do is to mark links by language.
For example, I wouldn’t have bothered to click on this link if it had read “Naver.com is now being forced to defend itself (Korean) against allegations …”
If I had 천원 for every time I’ve followed a link to an article that turned out to be in Korean and above my level, I’d be able to go to an 안마 tonight.
So, consider this a request. Thanks for your consideration.
Goat said, “Once again this just shows that the people who are protesting refuse to acknowledge any opposing viewpoint.”
Well put. What’s going on with these protesters today makes me think of McCathyism.
The protestors are a bunch of soju drunk lemmings. They don’t even have a clue what alleged dangers American beef bring. They need to go back to class and get the fuck off the streets. Fucking morons, each and every one! No conspiracy, just nonsense!
“The protestors are a bunch of soju drunk lemmings.”
North Korea has announced full sympathy and support for South Koreans’ civil disobedience and anti-government protests.
It’s certain that North Korean sympathizers and spies had a big hand in fanning the flames through the internet - no doubt about that. But the entire blame lies with the South Koreans and their society for being lemmings and following the North’s lead.
Yes, North Korea is having a field day over this.
Let’s talk about media control.
Here’s a great ROK drop page some may not yet have seen:
http://rokdrop.com/2008/02/27/.....f-control/
It explains how the ROK media has deliberately distorted the truth about the actually quite low GI crime rate in Korea. He shows that the USFK crime rate isn’t just lower than the Korean crime rate, but is significantly lower (.00131% of the population of USFK servicemembers in Korea, and 1 criminal incident for every 764 soldiers vs. 1 serious crime for every 100 Koreans). Note that between 2001 and 2008 there was not one murder of a Korean civilian perpetrated by a USFK servicemember. In fact a USFK servicemember was recently murdered by a Korean.
Additionally, the public has been misled to believe that US GI crimes have gobe unpunished, which is simply untrue.
Finally, the article cites the media’s cover up of crimes perpetrated against foreigners by Koreans.
“The best example of this is the 1995 Seoul subway brawl involving four USFK soldiers. One of the soldiers on the subway patted the behind of a Korean woman with him. A group of Korean males than confronted the American soldier about patting the woman’s behind. The woman explained to the male Koreans that she was in fact the soldier’s wife. After hearing this, the Korean males began to spat on and slap the woman for being married to the soldier. Needless to say the husband and friends intervened to prevent the Koreans from beating the soldier’s wife. However, the story that was published in the Korean media was one of drunk, American GIs sexually assaulting a Korean woman on the subway until confronted by concerned local citizens.
Here is how the Korea Times reported the case:
“The four went on the rampage in the subway station in May and beat Cho who tried to stop them, causing him injuries requiring three weeks of treatment, the prosecution claimed. They were indicted without physical detention on May 19.”
With a dishonest media narrative such as this, the incident quickly became one that inflamed anti-US sentiment in the country. This belief was only reinforced when the four GIs and the Korean wife were arrested and convicted of assault. Three of the GIs received monetary fines while the GI husband was sentenced to six months in jail while his wife, the one spat on and slapped, received a fine. The Koreans that started the fight in the first place were never even indicted. This is justice in Korea, that I show later in the essay, continues to be practiced to this day.
A year later the GI husband was able to successfully appeal his case and quietly his jail term was reduced to a fine just like the others involved. If the US-ROK SOFA had not been in place at the time he would have been imprisoned in Korean jail the entire time his case was awaiting appeal for an obvious travesty of justice. This case is one of many examples of why the US needs a SOFA with a country like South Korea where a sensational media and rampant xenophobic nationalism often makes any fair trial of an alleged crime by a USFK servicemember impossible.
Another more recent example of an outrageous arrest of USFK servicemembers was in 2003 when three American GIs were assaulted and then kidnapped off a Seoul subway by known anti-US activists. One of the kidnapped soldiers was taken to a packed college sports stadium and forced to make a coerced statement to the crowd condemning USFK that was broadcast on national television. Then the soldiers were taken to a hospital and forced to apologize to the anti-US activist who attacked them on the subway in the first place. Despite being assaulted on the subway, kidnapped, and then forced to make coerced statements on national TV, the soldiers were then booked by the police for assault.”