Instagram removed and then restored 'Myeolgong' posts
Vice Chairman Jung posts article including President Xi Jinping's photo
[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] Chung Yong-jin, Vice Chairman of Shinsegae Group, who has over 730,000 followers on social media (SNS), has become the center of controversy for repeatedly posting messages advocating "Myeolgong" (the destruction of communism). This is interpreted as expressing dissatisfaction with the political interpretation of his personal opinions and Instagram’s unclear reasons for deleting and then restoring his posts.
On the afternoon of the 6th, Vice Chairman Chung posted a screenshot of a newspaper article criticizing the government’s North Korea policy on his Instagram under the title "Korea cannot even protest against the arrogant China."
The article included a photo of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and President of China. Although Chung did not add any additional comments to the post, he used hashtags such as "Myeolgong," "Seunggong Tongil" (Victory over Communism and Unification), and "Bangong Bangcheop" (Anti-Communist Counterintelligence), which was interpreted as expressing antipathy toward the Chinese Communist Party. Over 3,400 comments on the post mostly criticized the Chinese Communist Party or the current government’s China policy.
Chung’s posting of this article appears to be a protest against Instagram’s deletion of another of his posts tagged with "Myeolgong" on the 5th, which was removed for "violence and incitement." Just a day earlier, Instagram deleted a post where Chung shared a photo of a hangover cure product with the caption "I will survive until the end #Myeolgong!!!," citing a violation of community guidelines regarding physical violence and incitement.
Chung reposted a screenshot of Instagram’s notification about the deletion, writing, "Why is this violence and incitement? I hate communism." He also posted a hashtag spelling out "Myeolgong" as "ㅁ ㅕ ㄹ ㄱ ㅗ ㅇ," seemingly to prevent the word from being deleted.
Instagram later restored the deleted post after a day, citing a "system error," but Chung expressed dissatisfaction by tagging his new post with phrases like "Delete this too" and "Is this also violence and incitement?"
In the early hours of the 7th, Chung continued by posting photos of newspaper articles reporting on his SNS remarks and a photo of a restaurant named "Bangong Bangcheop" found via a portal site, commenting, "I wish the portal site would explain the meaning of Bangong Bangcheop and show the restaurant."
Chung has previously posted several times on Instagram that "I hate communism (the Communist Party)." However, this is the first time he has directly expressed his dislike of the Chinese Communist Party by posting related newspaper articles. Inside and outside Shinsegae, there is an assessment that "Chung probably did not originally have a strong conviction behind the word 'Myeolgong,' but he became more enraged over the infringement of freedom of expression due to the deletion of his posts."
Some express concern that Chung’s repeated posts about the Communist Party and the inclusion of President Xi Jinping’s photo could provoke anti-Korean sentiment in China. Emart, which Chung oversees, entered the Chinese market in 1997 but completely withdrew from China in 2017 due to poor performance.
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