TikTok, Instagram delete fake Yoon videos ahead of elections

Screen capture images of the fake video titled,″Confession speech by President Yoon.″ The subtitles say "destroyed Korea," left, and "inflicted pain on people.″[SCREEN CAPTURE]

Social media platforms TikTok and Meta deleted all the fake videos of President Yoon Suk Yeol following the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) request, the KCSC said Monday.

A total of 22 fake videos were deleted from the platform, according to the state-run media watchdog.

This comes ahead of the April 10 general elections.

On Feb. 22, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency requested the KCSC to block 22 doctored videos of President Yoon, titled “Confession speech of President Yoon.”

Following the police’s request, the KCSC decided to block the videos on Feb. 23.

On Feb. 24, the media watchdog requested the global platforms to delete the videos after the presidential office stated that they would take strong action against the clearly doctored content the previous day.

Among the videos, 18 were on TikTok and four were on Meta’s Instagram.

In the video, President Yoon said, “The incapable and crooked Yoon administration indulged in privilege, unfair practices and corruption all the time.”

“I, Yoon Suk Yeol, enforced and executed laws that inflicted pain on people,” President Yoon said in the clips.

One of the videos was titled "Confession speech by President Yoon" and was labeled "artificially crafted."

Though the video stated that it was artificially edited, the video was flagged as possibly causing “visible social chaos.”

“It is quite unusual for these global platform companies to quickly delete videos requested by the KCSC,” a KCSC official said. “This seems to be due to the fact that the videos are clearly deceptively edited and that the companies also recognized the seriousness of the issue as the media strongly raised questions about the case.”

The KCSC plans to enforce its own monitoring system against doctored fake videos such as deepfake and spliced videos and to immediately execute procedures to block such videos.

BY CHOI SEO-IN, KIM JI-YE [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]