▲ On March 8, Lee Young, head of the Digital Media Division of the People’s Power Election Countermeasures Headquarters, holds a press conference related to ‘Kraken, detecting abnormal signs of sympathy in comments’ at the National Assembly Communication Hall in Yeouido, Seoul. ⓒPeople’s Power
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At the time of the last presidential election, when the controversy over the development of Daejang-dong’s preferential treatment was in full swing, the existence of a ‘new drake’ that the people’s power had raised suspicions was revealed to be true.
The core of the allegations at the time was that the reaction to articles unfavorable to the then presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol was artificially manipulated, similar to the case of manipulating druking comments in which former Gyeongsangnam-do Governor Kim Kyung-soo was involved. He argued that the power of the people was the result of analysis through ‘Kraken’, a program for responding to manipulation of comments. It was announced on the 24th that this claim was officially confirmed as true by the police.
Manipulating the number of recommendations for community posts using 20 million users per month
On March 7, ahead of the presidential election, a post stating that People’s Power candidate Yoon Seok-yeol was involved in the development of preferential treatment in Daejang-dong was uploaded to the large community site ‘MLB Park (MPak)’ used by 20 million people a month, and the number of recommendations was manipulated and exposed at the top. The Chosun Ilbo reported on the 24th that the suspect was handed over to the prosecution.
On March 6, the day before the incident, Newstapa produced and disseminated a video containing the claim that ‘People’s Strength Presidential Candidate Yoon Seok-yeol is involved in the development of Daejang-dong preferential treatment’.
In the video, candidate Yoon, who was the head of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office at the time of the Busan Savings Bank loan case in 2011, ignored the investigation of the broker Jomo, and Kim Man-bae introduced Cho to Park Young-soo, the former special prosecutor, content that was ignorant.
A few hours later, a post summarizing this video was posted on a major domestic community site, and it quickly received explosive ‘recommendations’ and took a prominent place. The police determined that there was fraudulent manipulation in this process.
In the case of MPAC, the article was posted at 2:53 a.m., and as of 12:40 p.m. that day, less than 10 hours had passed, 2330 recommendations were attached.
The article occupied the top of the ‘view in recommended order’ of the main screen at once. The ‘2330 recommendations’ in MPAC is nearly 10 times the usual maximum recommendation. The maximum number of daily recommendations for the previous 5 days (March 2-6) was 438-225-304-266-413, respectively.
At that time, MPAC also confirmed the operation… “A URL that can automatically recommend a specific post is inserted”
At that time, the People’s Power raised the possibility that the number of ‘likes’ or comments on the report and comments were manipulated.
Won Hee-ryong, then head of the Election Headquarters’ Policy Division, asked the question, “At the dawn of Monday, 1.5 million people jumped up and posted views? Maybe in China?”
On the date of the suspicion of manipulation, the management of MPAC said in a notice, “We would like to inform you regarding the manipulation of the number of recommendations for specific posts that took place this morning.” inserted,” he explained.
“We will report a user who uploaded a post with a URL that made it automatically recommend the most recommended posts to the National Police Agency’s Cyber Investigation Unit for obstruction of business,” he added.
So did other communities. The report in question went up as a post on various sites on the followingnoon of March 6, and in most of them, it took the top spot in recommendations. Posts with more ‘likes’ than views were found, and more than 20,000 comments and recommendations were gathered around midnight.
Among netizens, suspicions have been raised that ‘Shin Drooking, who was ordered by a specific force like Drooking, was systematically attempting to manipulate public opinion’.
In response, a police official said, “We cannot disclose the number of suspects, how organized they were, or how it was done.” An official from the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office also said, “I cannot confirm it,” the Chosun Ilbo reported.
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