South Korea’s spy agency has admitted that it had engaged in a far-reaching attempt to manipulate voters as it sought to help conservatives win parliamentary and presidential elections.
In-house investigators from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) confirmed that the agency’s cyberwarfare unit organized and operated up to 30 teams for more than two years in the run-up to the 2012 elections, the agency said in a statement late on Thursday.
They hired Internet-savvy civilians and sought to sway voter opinions through postings on portals and Twitter, the statement said.
Photo: AP
“The teams were charged with spreading pro-government opinions and suppressing anti-government views, branding them as pro-North Korean forces’ attempts to disturb state affairs,” it said.
At the time South Korea was led by president Lee Myung-bak.
Former South Korean president Park Geun-hye won the December 2012 presidential election, defeating Moon Jae-in.
Moon won South Korea’s presidential vote in May this year after Park was impeached and dismissed over corruption and abuse of power.
He has vowed to reform the NIS to prevent it from meddling in elections and make it focus on collecting and analyzing intelligence on North Korea and foreign affairs.
A spokesman for Park’s party, now in opposition and renamed Liberty Korea, yesterday said that the inquiry was “politically motivated.”
“The NIS says it will dissociate itself from politics, but it is meddling in politics again by starting this probe,” spokesman Kang Hyo-sang said in a statement.
Former NIS chief Won Sei-hoon is being tried for the second time for leading an online smear campaign against Moon after his initial conviction was overturned on appeal.
However, the NIS investigation results suggest the scale of the voter manipulation was far wider than previously thought.
The internal probe also found that Won ordered the agency to muzzle the press, provide support for pro-government civic groups and put some major opposition politicians under secret surveillance.
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