Kim Geun-sik, Chairman of the People Power Party's Songpa-byeong District in Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Yeon-ju] Kim Geun-sik, the head of the People Power Party’s Songpa-byeong district committee in Seoul, who raised suspicions of manipulation in the portal search results for Minister of Justice Chu Mi-ae, stated on the 21st that "questions still remain" regarding Naver’s explanation.
On the same day, Kim wrote on his Facebook, saying, "Provide a proper explanation so that even those of us with a low level of understanding can fully accept it."
Earlier, on the 19th, Kim posted on his Facebook, "When searching for Chu Mi-ae on Naver via smartphone, the search categories appearing on the first screen are strange," and raised suspicions of manipulation in the search results, noting, "For most politicians, the categories appear in the order of News, Images, and Real-time Search, but for Minister Chu, News and Real-time Search appeared after Shopping, which was far behind."
Following the controversy, the person in charge of Naver’s search development announced on the official blog, "The error was found not only with the search term ‘Chu Mi-ae’ but also with some other search terms," and added, "We urgently started correcting the issue and completed the work around 12:50 a.m. on the 20th."
Kim explained, "I discovered the strange search categories for Chu Mi-ae on the afternoon of the 16th," adding, "Unlike other politicians, ‘News’ and ‘Real-time’ were placed far behind ‘Shopping,’ and on PC searches, unlike mobile, ‘News’ and ‘Images’ remained the same, but ‘Real-time Search’ had to be accessed via a dropdown in the far right ‘More’ section."
He continued, "Since it could have been a temporary error, I captured screenshots and checked again on the 17th and 18th, and the results for Chu Mi-ae were consistently strange. On the 19th, the same results appeared, so I raised the suspicion on Facebook around 3 p.m.," and explained, "Afterwards, the media reported on it, and I confirmed that the mobile search results for Chu Mi-ae were normalized between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on the 19th. Then, at 12:50 a.m. on the 20th, the technical manager posted that the correction was completed."
However, he questioned, "If there was a data aggregation error, the phenomenon should appear consistently across all keywords," and asked, "Does the explanation that such an error could occur only for ‘some search terms,’ especially the politically sensitive search term ‘Chu Mi-ae,’ make sense?"
He added, "If there was a data aggregation error, why did the mobile and PC search results differ?"
Regarding the explanation that invisible spaces were included during the process of copying and pasting specific search terms, he questioned, "What does it mean that only the click data for ‘(space) Hong Gil-dong’ was aggregated?" and expressed suspicion, saying, "The click data for the normal search term ‘Chu Mi-ae’ was not aggregated, but only ‘(space) Chu Mi-ae’ was aggregated, which is more likely manipulation than an error."
Kim also questioned, "Is it appropriate for the explanation on a politically sensitive issue to come not directly from a Naver official but through the search development manager?" and asked, "Is the manager’s post the official position of Naver?"
He concluded, "Provide a proper explanation so that even those of us with a low level of understanding can fully accept it," and said, "Our people still remember what Naver has done in the past."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
