Related Forum Scheduled at the National Assembly on November 5
Poster for the 5·18 Media Portal Monitoring and Policy Alternatives Research Results Presentation Forum.
It has been found that most comments distorting or disparaging the 5·18 Democratization Movement online are deleted primarily through user reports, indicating that portal regulatory systems are effectively not functioning.
According to the May 18 Memorial Foundation and the Citizens’ Coalition for Democratic Media (CCDM) on November 2, an analysis of comments on Naver News articles from 27 media outlets between December last year and September this year showed a total of 7,934 comments identified as distorting or disparaging the 5·18 Democratization Movement (subject to reporting).
Of these, only 673 comments (8.48%) were filtered automatically by Cleanbot, 669 comments (8.43%) were voluntarily deleted by the authors, 46 comments (0.58%) were removed for defamation or similar reasons, and 10 comments (0.13%) were deleted for violating operational regulations.
The remaining 6,536 comments (82.38%) were addressed solely through manual user reports, meaning the platform’s automatic regulatory features were virtually inactive. By comment type, ‘regional hate’ accounted for 2,967 cases (37.4%), and ‘fake merit recipient’ for 1,640 cases (20.67%), together making up more than half of the total.
This was followed by criticism of the left (860 cases, 10.84%), claims of armed rebellion (804 cases, 10.13%), disparagement of the May spirit (640 cases, 8.07%), and allegations of North Korean military involvement (349 cases, 4.4%).
Comments targeting specific groups or undermining values-such as regional hate, fake merit recipient, criticism of the left, and disparagement of the May spirit-accounted for 76.98% of the total, indicating that the main trend was to attack legitimacy and values rather than deny historical facts themselves.
Among the 5,321 comment authors, the top 20 individuals posted an average of 16.5 comments each, accounting for 4.16% of the total. Many users were found to repeatedly post certain expressions.
Shin Taeseop, Co-Representative of CCDM, stated, “I hope this serves as an opportunity to institutionalize platform accountability and establish a citizen response system to correct the rampant historical distortion and disparagement in online spaces and far-right media.”
Meanwhile, based on these analysis results, the May 18 Memorial Foundation and CCDM plan to hold the “5·18 Media Portal Monitoring and Policy Alternatives Research Results Presentation Forum” at the National Assembly on November 5, where they will discuss the current state of distortion and disparagement, as well as ways to strengthen platform responsibility.
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