South Korea’s Yoon accused of using ‘fake news’ crack down to gag dissent ahead of polls

The video, shared on social media in recent months, was initially and erroneously reported by local media to be an AI-generated “deepfake”, and later found to have been pieced together with clips from Yoon’s 2022 presidential election campaign speech.

“I, Yoon Suk-yeol, have been enforcing laws that harass our nation,” the 46-second fabricated video featured him saying. “I ruined our country and made its people suffer by clinging onto an ideology that deviates from common sense.”

Titled “President Yoon’s Fictionalised Sincere Confession Speech”, the clip went viral after being posted on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok by an anonymous creator.

In the process of being spread online, the full title identifying the video as a fictionalised work was often dropped, causing both lawmakers and the news media to speculate that it might be a deepfake video.

After it emerged the video was a fictionalised compilation, some media outlets began describing it as satire, to the ruling party’s displeasure.

“We express serious concerns over the fact that certain outlets are labelling the false and fabricated video as a satirical video, and reporting it is acceptable because it has been marked as fake,” presidential spokeswoman Kim Soo-kyung said during a press briefing.

“This is an action that goes against the calling of the press, which should root out fake news,” she said. “The presidential office plans to respond strongly to such false and fabricated videos in the future.”

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Critics said officials and the ruling People Power Party were capitalising on the incident to gag critical voices ahead of the parliamentary election in April.

“How can it be called anything other than satire