[imText1]A South Korean NGO has put forward the possibility of North Korea utilizing ‘Wikibaekwha’, the Korean language version of Wikipedia, to spread lies and propaganda. The organization, Civil Coalition for Fairness in Media, says that the world famous online encyclopedia exhibits a pro-North Korea bias, and believes that this may be as a result of systematic false revisions.
At a January 26th open forum entitled, ‘Current State of Affairs and Ways to Improve Korean Wikipedia’, co-hosted by Civil Coalition for Fairness in Media (CCFM) and ‘story K’, an online forum for young people, Choi Ok Hwa, the head of the CCFM monitoring team said, “Wikipedia describes unconfirmed facts as truth and denigrates South Korea’s leaders, while there are many cases where they emphasize the toughness and softness of North Korean leaders in information related to them”
Choi suggested that this may be down to North Korean intervention, saying, “To the extent that netizens can revise the information on Wikipedia directly, there is a high possibility of information on North Korea being revised.”
“Occasions when they have stolen the IDs of South Koreans from abroad and modified information have been observed,” she added.
In terms of information on Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in the online encyclopedia, Choi asserted, “It arouses the illusion of reading Kim Il Sung’s autobiography or Kim Jong Il’s propaganda life story as published by North Korea.”
She emphasized, “The encyclopedia directly describes details idolizing Kim Il Sung, like organizing the anti-Japanese resistance movement in his youth and forming the communist movement. However, the facts that he purged people in a merciless, nasty way so as to concentrate power in himself and, most of all, the fact that he suppressed the North Korean people and enforced a dictatorship are not even mentioned.”
Regarding the personal description of Kim Jong Il, she went on, “The encyclopedia describes him in a positive way in most of its items, for example, ‘He organized a biographical research institute unit for General Kim Il Sung at the age of 14’ and ‘he argued against a Chosun Workers’ Party official who was imbued with toadyism in a lecture at the age of 28′.”
Given that, she added, “There is a high possibility that North Korea directly posted the contents, or that a pro-North Korea party was involved,” and pointed out, “While details of Kim Jong Il’s idolization are published, neither the details of Kim Jong Il’s leadership of political prison camps, public executions and annihilation of human rights nor North Korean human rights issues are included.”
Elsewhere, she said the encyclopedia describes the 1987 downing of a Korean Air jet at the hands of two North Korean agents as an open case, “Under investigation due to the continued existence of unanswered questions”.
However, Choi pointed out, in reality, “The investigation of this case has already been concluded.”
In conclusion, Choi said that problems with Wikipedia can be categorized as; ▲inadequate explanation of main ideas; ▲ subjectively taking North Korea’s side on incidents; ▲ inadequate use of examples.
“I am 100% positive (about North Korea’s involvement),” Choi Yoon Chul, the Director of Investigation Research Department at North Korea Strategy Center, agreed. “Brilliant minds raised as part of North Korean government policy do this as a hacking unit, one of North Korea’s asymmetrical warfare units. They will not simply sit back and watch, leaving such an easy propaganda method unused.”
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