Tag: fake news

I am sure the USFK PAO did not have this on their bingo card of things they would have to respond to this week:

The United States Forces Korea on Monday denied online media reports of 99 Chinese spies being captured by the US and South Korean military and confessing to election rigging, saying the notion is “entirely false.”

“The depiction of US forces and the allegations in the mentioned ROK media articles are entirely false. US Forces Korea remains committed to its mission of maintaining stability and security on the Korean Peninsula in accordance with the US-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty. We urge responsible reporting and fact-checking to prevent the spread of misinformation that could harm public trust,” the USFK said in a public statement, referring to South Korea’s formal name, the Republic of Korea.

Thursday’s claim by Sky Daily, a far-right platform founded in 2011, alleged that the South Korean military cooperated with the US military to take into custody 99 Chinese nationals at the National Election Commission building during the Dec. 3-4 imposition of martial law.

Korea Herald via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but even if the Chinese had spies in the NEC this would have nothing to do with USFK. This would be completely a ROK counterintelligence and law enforcement matter to arrest Chinese spies.

This here is a perfect example of a lawmaker passing on fake news to attack the President’s wife with for political gain:

The presidential office filed a complaint with the police against main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Rep. Jang Kyung-tae for “spreading false information” about photos taken earlier this month during first lady Kim Keon-hee’s visit with a Cambodian child suffering a congenital heart disease. The presidential office complained that Jang had described the first lady’s photo shoot as a “concept shoot using at least two or three lights and other on-site studio-level equipment.”

Rep. Jang had stirred up debate over his remarks that Kim’s photo shoot amounted to “poverty porn,” or the exploitation of people in impoverished conditions to garner sympathy or support for a cause, and that it was a diplomatic discourtesy as she met the child instead of attending an official program organized at the same time for spouses of visiting world leaders. He is now under investigation by the National Assembly’s ethics committee. 

The presidential office said it filed a complaint against Jang with the police for his remarks during a Nov. 18 DPK Supreme Council member meeting and subsequent Facebook posting. (……)

During the meeting, Jang supported his claims, saying that “foreign media and photography experts analyze the photo of Kim Keon-hee as having been taken with at least two to three lights to create an on-site studio, as a concept photo shoot, rather than being a photograph taken of the natural volunteering process.” It later turned out he was citing a posting on the U.S.-based global web forum Reddit, which had since been deleted.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

These fake news laws are slippery slope because who defines what is fake news?:

The International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, executives and journalists dedicated to the protection and promotion of media freedom, has called for the withdrawal of a bill being pushed by the liberal ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) to punish media outlets producing alleged “fake news,” noting that many such laws are promulgated in “authoritarian countries.” 

“In recent years, there has been a rapid growth of so-called fake news laws around the world. Many of these laws have been passed in authoritarian countries,” Scott Griffen, deputy director of the IPI, said in a recent email interview with The Korea Times.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The South Korean government is trying to get maximum political benefit from everyone pronouncing Kim Jong-un as dead:

 The recent brouhaha surrounding the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un showed how “fake news” can affect the economy, such as stock and financial markets, Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said Thursday.

Speculative reports about Kim’s health spread wildly after he failed to show up at a key national event last month. CNN reported Kim could be in “grave danger after surgery” while some other media outlets went as far as saying that he was believed to be in a coma or already dead.

South Korean officials, including the unification minister, repeatedly rejected such rumors as fake news, but speculation persisted until Kim appeared in public last week, smiling broadly and showing no signs of illness.

“We’ve witnessed the effect fake news has on the stock and financial markets,” the minister said during a press briefing.

“When analyzing intelligence, we cannot but take into consideration the effect it can have on the political situation and how it can actually affect the economy. What’s more important is to take responsibility in handling intelligence,” he said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but just because the so called North Korea experts the media turns to was wrong about Kim Jong-un doesn’t mean every expert critical of anything the Moon administration does is wrong as well.

Could you imagine what the reaction would be from mainstream journalists if the Trump administration cracked down on fake news put out by liberal websites?  The Moon administration does this against conservative websites and there is not a peep so far about it from so called journalists:

Justice Minister Park Sang-ki called on prosecutors Tuesday to crack down on fake news, saying the spread of false information undermines public trust in society and can lead to serious political and economic damages.  (……)

Opposition parties fired at Lee, saying the Moon Jae-in administration was out to suppress freedom of speech.

In a Justice Ministry press release Tuesday, Park ordered prosecutors to crack down on fake news and track whoever was responsible for its production and distribution. In cases in which serious falsehoods are clear, prosecutors were told to “actively start” investigations even before a formal complaint had been submitted to them.

The Justice Ministry said it planned to collect cases that local courts ruled to have been fake news and pass them on to the police, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Communications Standards Commission in order to request assistance in deleting them from the internet, monitoring any further spread and educating society about their false nature.

The Justice Ministry denied Park’s orders amounted to a violation of freedom of speech, saying authorities were trying to tackle the spread of fake information, which actually “disturbs” the public’s right to know and “threatens the sphere of democratic public debate.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but remember the Moon administration has already used violence & labor unions to consolidate control of local media and been busy jailing conservative journalists using libel laws.

What makes this crackdown even more dubious is that the Druking Scandal that linked the Moon administration to election manipulation through false comment liking software has quietly went away.

What I find interesting about this is that JTBC ran a fake news story that ultimately led to the impeachment of the South Korean president with no consequences; TV Chosun airs a far less significant fake news story and they are having legal action taken against them:

A controversial false report by the TV Chosun network claiming North Korea demanded US$10,000 for coverage of the dismantlement of its Punggye Village nuclear test site was subsequent to heavy disciplinary action in the form of “legal measures” by the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) broadcasting subcommittee for violation of objectivity. TV Chosun is a conservative network that began broadcasting under Chosun Ilbo on Dec. 1, 2011.In a meeting convened on June 21, the subcommittee heard opinions and accounts from TV Chosun information center deputy chief Jeong Seok-yeong and political desk chief Kang Sang-gu before reaching a majority decision to refer the matter to the KCSC plenary session.

On May 19, TV Chosun aired an “exclusive” on “News 7” claiming North Korea had demanded US$10,000 per person from US journalists for coverage of the dismantlement of the nuclear test site at Punggye Village.In his appearance before the subcommittee that day, Kang said that he himself had been the segment’s writer rather than Eom Seong-seop, the journalist who delivered the report.“I basically wrote the piece,”

Kang said.When asked by review committee members if TV Chosun had different journalists investigating stories, writing reports, and reading reports, Kang replied, “There are such cases in the interest of protecting sources.”TV Chosun claimed the report was based on interviews with two US journalists and North Korean officials. While it did not disclose the names of the US reporters, it described them as “reliable journalists.” But neither of them was actually present for coverage at Punggye Village. South Korean and overseas new outlets confirmed that no such money had been paid by members of the foreign press present at the dismantlement, including CNN’s Will Ripley.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read more a the link, but TV Chosun is really the only conservative TV news station left in South Korea since the Moon administration used labor unions and violence to consolidate control over the other major news networks.  This is clearly a shot across the bow by the ROK government to get them to moderate their coverage.

The cynic in me though does wonder if TV Chosun was setup or not by whoever gave them the information about the payments to North Korea?

Here is the latest on the online opinion rigging scandal in South Korea:

In the latest development of Korea’s own “fake news” case, an influential blogger charged with manipulating comments on the country’s most popular portal site may have collected donations for a ruling party lawmaker, according to files obtained by the police on Tuesday, deepening suspicions that the blogger may have masterminded his campaign on behalf of the Democratic Party.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency obtained the files from a USB drive belonging to a close associate of Kim Dong-won, the blogger known online as Druking. The finding is the latest in a police investigation of Druking’s alleged campaign to rig online opinion in favor of President Moon Jae-in during last year’s election.

According to the police, Druking and his team used software to fiddle with the comments section on Naver by increasing the number of “likes” on certain comments and giving the appearance that one opinion dominated on the forum. Druking allegedly used the software to help Moon win the election, but when the president’s office refused to grant patronage positions to some of his acquaintances after the election, the blogger turned on Moon by having his team like comments critical of the president.

The police arrested Druking in March for his anti-Moon campaign, and at his first trial hearing last week, the blogger admitted to the charge. Central to Druking’s online activities was a community he ran called Kyungkongmo. According to files from the USB drive, members of the online community collected over 30 million won ($27,800) to deliver to Rep. Kim Kyoung-soo, a Democratic Party lawmaker with close ties to President Moon. The police are investigating allegations that Kim may have worked with Druking to manipulate online opinion during last year’s election and that Kyungkongmo may have supplied the manpower.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I find it interesting that the police only cracked down on Druking after he turned on President Moon.  Why wasn’t he arrested before then?  Was his activities okay as long as they were targeted against Korean conservatives?

This tactic by the Russians is really nothing new since misinformation on the Internet is something long used in South Korea for political purposes:

Posing as American activists, Russian government-linked trolls created 129 Facebook events between 2015 and 2017.

On multiple occasions, the events prompted real Americans to take to the streets.

In a written statement Facebook gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee released on Thursday, the social media network said that the events created by one Kremlin-linked troll group were seen by more than 300,000 Facebook users. About 62,500 users marked that they would attend the event, and an additional 25,800 expressed an interest in attending.

Facebook told Congress it does “not have data about the realization of these events,” but CNN has previously found evidence that the Russian group successfully convinced Americans to attend the demonstrations.

The events were organized on a range of divisive issues and were designed to pit Americans against each other.

In one case, the troll group organized and promoted two opposing events on the same day at the same location in Houston, Texas.

“Heart of Texas,” a page that posed as a pro-Texas secession organization, promoted a “Stop Islamization of Texas” protest at the opening of a library at an Islamic Center on May 21, 2016. The same troll group used another page, “United Muslims of America,” to promote a “Save Islamic Knowledge” event at the same time.

The Russian group spent $200 promoting the events on Facebook, the company told Congress last fall.

Executive director of the American-Islamic Relations in Texas, Mustafaa Carroll, told CNN that his organization had contacted the FBI about comments posted on the “Heart of Texas” page before the protest. One of them read: “Need to blow this place up. We don’t need this shit in Texas.”  [CNN]

You can read more at the link, but using trolls to create fake news and events is why the prior ROK government under President Lee Myung-bak implemented a real-name verification system for commenters to avoid false information influencing elections.  President Lee had first hand experience with this when the 2008 US Mad Cow Crisis nearly toppled his Presidency shortly after being inaugurated.  Afterwards the whole thing was proven to be fake news spread over the Internet and promoted by major media outlets to topple the President.

Everyone remember this incident at the US Air Force Academy back in September that drew national headlines and forced the school’s superintendent to make a strong speech against racism?:

After racial slurs were scrawled outside black students’ doors at the U.S. Air Force Academy’s preparatory school, Superintendent Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria gathered all 4,000 cadets in a hall Thursday so they could hear one message: Treat people with dignity and respect — or get out.

“That kind of behavior has no place at the prep school, it has no place at USAFA, and it has no place in the United States Air Force,” Silveria said, in a speech that has found an enthusiastic reception after it was recorded and published online. “You should be outraged not only as an airman, but as a human being.”  [NPR]

I was dubious of this story when it happened because it seems every time a racism incident like this happens it later comes out that it was fake news.  Well now it has been determined that yes this was in fact fake news:

One of the cadet candidates at the Air Force Academy Preparatory School allegedly targeted by racist remarks has been found responsible for the act.

Academy officials announced the cadet candidate is no longer at the school on Tuesday. The investigation started when the words, written on whiteboards outside their dorm rooms, read, “Go home,” followed by the N-word were found in September. The hateful messages were discovered Sept. 25. The words were found on the outside of five African American cadet candidates’ rooms.

The academy says the individual admitted responsibility and this was confirmed by the investigation.  [KKTV]

The original reporting made national headlines and now the fact that this has been proven to be fake news is making few headlines.  This fake news just continues to feed the narrative there are white supremacist racists around every street corner to include in the US Air Force Academy which is not true. However, the media has no interest in reporting responsibly, but instead finding click bait articles which these racism articles seem to be for them.