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South Korean Pres. Vows Pre-emptive Strikes on Social Media Rumors

Categories: East Asia, South Korea, Breaking News, Citizen Media, Digital Activism, Freedom of Speech, Governance, Politics, Protest, Technology

Is South Korea government gearing up toward social media censorship? The latest official remark by President Park (full transcript [1] [ko]) had Korean net users worried. Park, addressing “those rumors spreading via social media”, said “if the government let these things happen, it will bring chaos nationwide” and added “bear in mind that the authorities need to react fast and aggressively, and preemptively against those groups trying to distort the situations”. Many twitter users voiced concerns and pointed out the fact (such as @ppsskr's tweet [2] [ko] which has been retweeted over 500 times) that the government bodies sent out over 24 million tweets to tip the scale in favor of Park [3] in the latest presidential election.