Ahead of the next month’s presidential election, Korean voters are deluged with fake news on major social media platforms, and the national election watchdog has so far cracked down on more than 30,000 cases of disinformation. The JoongAng Ilbo obtained a report on Wednesday from the National Election Commission’s Electoral Cyber Crime Center regarding its crackdowns on illegal internet postings concerning the 19th presidential election on May 9. The commission so far detected 31,004 fake news postings as of Tuesday. It is already 4.3 times higher than the total number of fake news stories shut down during the 2012 presidential election. Of the 31,004 postings, 20,104 contained fake news and false information, while 9,327 were announcements of illegal surveys. Another 762 contained slander against candidates and 375 were postings containing insults toward specific regions. The National Election Commission deleted the postings after its crackdowns.
The commission also analyzed the distribution channels of fake news stories for the first time at the request of the JoongAng Ilbo. The analysis showed that fake news was mainly disseminated through the country’s largest social media services.
According to the analysis, 26.2 percent was spread through Naver Band, while 23.7 percent was spread through Facebook. Another 22.1 percent was spread through Twitter while Daum Cafe, a community site, was responsible for distributing 5.7 percent and 4.6 percent was distributed through Kakao Story.
Full Article: Korean voters swamped by fake news reports on social media-INSIDE Korea JoongAng Daily.
