“Dominate Online Public Opinion”

It is reported that a left-wing students’ group where HanChongYeon participates formulated an online practice group last month and is working to influence public opinion on the Internet.

On February 10, an article titled, “anti-conservative online practice group’s February plans” was posted on the website of Students’ Union for Implementation of the June 15 Joint Declaration (CheongHakYeonDae.) On the same day, the article was posted on the HanChongYeon homepage as well.

CheongHakYeonDae said in the article, “The practice group was created to dominate online public opinion which is largely influenced by the conservatives at the moment, and to make citizens work together to protest groups like the Grand National Party, which oppose those that support the June 15 Joint Declaration.”

It also said, “basically, we will post what our headquarters says and our replies on our website, and will work as groups, which will be comprised of three members each.” It added, “The purpose of working as groups is to establish a contact system among groups and the headquarters so that we can work in an organized fashion.”

The students’ union decided to do their propaganda work on discussion communities of main portal sites, left-wing Internet sites, online media outlets and conservatives’ websites.

It also chose a club of an Internet portal site as its online stronghold and ordered its members to monitor the online activities of conservatives once a week.

Since the article was posted on CheongHakYeonDae’s homepage, several similar ones have appeared on other Internet sites.

For instance, an article titled: “Banish U.S. ambassador to Korea Alexander Vershbow” that was posted on an online outlet homepage on February 20 had similar arguments to those of the CheongHakYeonDae’s statement in December 2005.

An article titled: “10 reasons why we disapprove of the expansion of the U.S. Forces Korea base in Pyeongtaek” on an Internet discussion site last Saturday had the almost same argument as that of the statement CheongHakYeonDae announced in January.

CheongHakYeonDae was created in March 2003 with the goals of implementing the June 15 Joint Declaration and launching anti-America, anti-war campaigns. At present, 24 student unions, including HanChongYeon, work as its members.

In November 2004, CheongHakYeonDae staged an online demonstration by spreading articles about its aim of making the year 2005 the first year of unification.

In regard to this, an official of HanChongYeon said, “We only express the stance of the students’ union. We do not make orders using media outlets. We do not agree with the orders of the online practice group of CheongHakYeonDae, and it doesn’t seem that everything about the group is going as planned.”

ditto@donga.com