COURT RULING ON KIM KYOUNG-SOO

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There was a news brief yesterday about the Supreme Court confirming the lower courts’ sentencing for Gyeongsangnam-do Govenor Kim Kyoung-soo. With that final ruling, the internet comment fabrication case finally came to an end after four years. Here’s an overview of the so-called Druking case.

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In January 2018, slanderous comments about the Moon Jae-in administration ranked high on the trending lists of internet portal sites. The ruling bloc reported the incident to the police, claiming the comments were likely fabricated systematically. The police found that Kim Dong-won, a power blogger nicknamed Druking, and his associates were behind it. Kim allegedly had done the same thing during the 2017 presidential campaign and Gyeongsangnam-do Governor Kim Kyoung-soo was suspected of being involved in it. The blogger supposedly asked the governor for some hiring favors after making up positive comments about the Moon camp.

[Soundbite] Kim Kyoung-soo(Former Democratic Party lawmaker (Apr. 16, 2018)) : "I was dumbfounded when there were comments like "there will be dire consequences for those turning their backs on the Moon Jae-in administration.""

A fiery political wrangling dubbed the public opinion manipulation gate followed, prompting the National Assembly to pass the Special Prosecution Act.

[Soundbite] Chung Sye-kyun(Former Speaker of the National Assembly (May 21, 2018)) : "I declare the bill on the appointment of a special prosecutor to find the truth about Druking's illegal manipulation of online comments has been approved."

Former lawmaker Roh Hoe-chan, who was accused of receiving illegal political funds from Druking, committed suicide while undergoing the special prosecution team’s investigation. Governor Kim was put to trial along with Druking and his group. They were accused of using about 2,800 different user IDs and a comment recommendation program to manipulate the rankings of roughly 76,000 comments on news articles. The key issue was whether Governor Kim had planned it together with Druking. He claimed there was no collusion since he hadn’t even seen the demonstration of the King Crab program that was used to alter the comment rankings. He reportedly couldn’t see the demonstration because he was having a meal and presented a restaurant receipt as evidence but his explanation wasn’t accepted. Druking Kim Dong-won completed his 3-year sentence and was released from prison in March.