I won’t hold my breath waiting for the Moon Jae-in campaign to apologize for defaming this woman and launching a siege of her apartment:
SEOUL, Dec. 16 (Yonhap) — Police said Sunday that they have failed to find evidence of alleged anti-opposition online comments by a female agent of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), who has come under fire over allegations that she repeatedly made negative comments in cyberspace about main opposition presidential candidate Moon Jae-in over the past three months from her home in southern Seoul to influence the race.
The police investigation began at the request of Moon’s Democratic United Party (DUP) and the NIS agent recently presented her personal and notebook computers to the police.
With the presidential election set for Wednesday, the allegation had emerged as a major campaign issue.
Winding up an intensive investigation, police said they failed to find any online postings or comments by the 28-year-old agent about Moon.
On Saturday, the intelligence agent, accompanied by her lawyer, underwent four hours of questioning at the Suseo Police Station in southern Seoul.
After the questioning, the agent claimed innocence, saying, “I am falsely accused. I have not put anything online slandering Moon.”
“It is regrettable that they are trying to drag me and the NIS, which has remained neutral, into the election,” she told reporters as she left the police station.
The DUP, which raised the allegations in the first place, accused the NIS of interfering with the election by posting slanderous comments on the Internet about the liberal contender.
The NIS has denied the allegations, voicing “strong regret” over what it said was “malicious propaganda” against it and warning that it may take legal action. [Yonhap]
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8:09 am on December 18th, 2012 1
I wouldn’t hold my breath either, because the investigation is still ongoing, and nobody is “cleared” yet: http://news.hankyung.com/201212/201212180379g.html?ch=news
2:01 pm on December 18th, 2012 2
Also this one: http://news.donga.com/2012president/3/000635/20121219/51704094/1
The police is saying it will take a number of days, and can’t estimate when the investigation would end. Nobody is cleared.
5:29 pm on December 18th, 2012 3
I remember a study finding that during the 2008 mad-cow protests in South Korea, upwards of 90% of online comments in support of the movement were left by a tiny percentage of the actual “Netizens,” creating the artificial impression of a broad-based social phenomenon. For a while, it almost worked.
In other words, only a fool would doubt that cyber-opinion is manipulated by both “liberals” and “conservatives” in South Korea.
Everyone knows that the South Korean “hive mind” tends to move in one general direction. The key for political activists seems to be to push it towards a crucial tipping point, and then reaps the spoils.
Perhaps one day the lemmings will learn to think for themselves? And perhaps one day the lemming-like South Korean media will stop uncritically parroting online commentary themselves, given how unreliable it often seems to be?
Well, I won’t be holding my breath.
6:29 pm on December 18th, 2012 4
Superficial impressions of the 2012 South Korean Presidential campaign:
Park Geun-hye moved just far enough to the center to choke off Moon Jae-in’s political oxygen. For example, moderating Lee Myung-bak’s hardline approach to North Korea, and a kinder, gentler approach to social welfare policy.
Meanwhile, domestic media coverage tended overwhelmingly to focus on optics and personality rather than policy, doing a great disservice to voters. Of course, like the Democrats and Republicans in the US, the two main parties in Korea are more similar than they are different, and so the focus on personality and image seem to be all that’s left. Red? Green? Blueberry cheesecake? Is that all there is?
I predict Park Geun-hye will win, because a majority of South Koreans are economically and politically conservative, and because the progressives still can’t seem to get their act together and come up with a credible candidate that inspires confidence in the electorate. Moon’s call to decouple from the ROK-US alliance and cozy up to Butchers of Beijing won’t help to assure voters in these troubled times, either.
As a consequence, expect more shenanigans during the coming protest season of 2013, because of course the liberals and progressives, “democracy standard-bearers” that they are, won’t be able to understand how they screwed up once again, and will have to somehow redeem themselves to their base, if no one else. Thus will they prove once again what they really mean by “democracy.”
And the South Korean media will play right along, because of course they need to make money just like everyone else. Hey, everyone loves a good show, even if it’s actually just a tired sequel, don’t they?
Dae~ Han Min Guk! Fighting! Because it’s what we do best!