Every day for the past week, Kim Kwon-seop, 72, has joined thousands of others who have gathered near the home of South Korea’s impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol. They were determined to protect Mr. Yoon from prosecutors who wanted to detain him on sedition charges stemming from the his short-lived declaration of a state of emergency last month.
To them, it was the opposition that committed the rebellion, abusing its majority in the Assembly to repeatedly block Mr. Yoon’s policy initiatives. For them, the opposition parliamentary majority was invalid because elections last April was furnished. And for them protection is Mr. Yoona was synonymous with protecting South Korea from “North Korean followers” who have taken root in every corner of their society, from the judiciary to schools and the media.
South Koreans usually dismiss such conspiracy theories as little more than internet demagoguery spread by right-wing YouTubers with the help of social media algorithms. But amid the country’s entrenched political polarization, they fueled unrest over the situation of Mr. Yoon, driving away zealous believers like Mr. It calls for them to take to the streets in large numbers, calling for the president’s return to office.
“Every day when I leave home for this rally, I tell my wife that this may be the last time she sees me alive, because I am ready to die for my cause,” Mr. Kim said. “This is not just about protecting President Yoon. It is about saving my country for my descendants.”
If President-elect Donald J. Trump has the “Make America Great Again” movement behind him, Mr. Yoon has “taegeukgi budae” (literally “brigade under the national flag”). It is made up mostly of elderly church-going South Koreans who enliven their gatherings with patriotic songs, the waving of South Korean and American flags in support of their country’s alliance with Washington, and scathing attacks on national left-wing politicians they fear would hand over their country to China and North Korea. Korea.
“We won!” waving flags supporters of Mr. Yoon was yelled at on Friday when the investigators withdrew from presidential residence after failing to serve a court order to detain him for questioning.
“Yoon Suk Yeol depends on South Korea’s version of MAGA to stay in power,” said Ahn Byong-jin, a political science professor at Kyung Hee University in Seoul.
Mr. Yoon sparked right-wing fear and outrage when he declared martial law on Dec. 3 to “eliminate the despised pro-North Korean and anti-state forces in one fell swoop.” But his attempt to bring his country under military rule for the first time in 45 years lasted only a few hours. The opposition-dominant National Assembly voted to abolish it even later recalled him.
Suspended from office, Mr. Yoon now faces a trial at the Constitutional Court, which will decide whether to formally remove him. He is also the subject of separate investigations by prosecutors, who have accused him of committing rebellion when he ordered troops to seize the Assembly and imprison his political enemies during his martial law.
With public opinion polls showing most South Koreans want him ousted, Mr. Yoon’s strongest defenders are his flag-waving supporters and right-wing YouTubers, who extol him as champion of alliance promotion with Washington. Those YouTubers, some with around a million subscribers, are demanding Mr. Yoon’s return and live-streaming pro-Yoon rallies, where speakers have called attempts to remove him a “coup” at the behest of North Korea. They also strengthen political polarization by channeling conspiracy theories against Mr. Yoon’s progressive enemies.
Right-wing YouTubers have long boasted of their friendship with Mr. Yoon, after dozens of them were invited to his inauguration in 2022. After his failed martial law, Mr. Yoon left no doubt that he was a huge fan.
“I’m watching your fight in real time via YouTube livestreaming,” said Mr. Yoon in a message to his supporters gathered outside his home on New Year’s Day. “Our country is at risk from anti-state forces running rampant, as well as from forces within and outside of it that are violating our sovereignty.”
During Wednesday’s rally, Seok Dong-hyeon, a lawyer who serves as Mr. Yoon’s spokesman, thanked the right-wing YouTubers there and he called the investigators who are trying to arrest Mr. Yoona as a “front” for the opposition.
“This is war,” he said. “And you are warriors.”
Like other democracies, South Korea has come to grips with the role of social media in shaping politics. About 53 percent of South Koreans say they consume news on YouTube, higher than the average of 30 percent in the 46 countries surveyed, according to the Korea Press Foundation’s 2023 report.
Analysts worry that algorithm-driven information bubbles, with people constantly served up more content they’ve expressed interest in watching, are helping to divide the nation. The language and conspiracy theories that Mr. The policies adopted by Yoon and his supporters mirror those offered by right-wing YouTubers, said Hong Sung-guk, a former lawmaker and columnist.
“Yoon’s is probably the world’s first insurgency fueled by algorithmic addictions,” Mr. Hong said.
A dozen attendees of a recent rally in favor of Yoon interviewed for this article strongly believed in conspiracy theories, saying that right-wing YouTubers were their primary or only source of news.
“They are telling the truth,” said Kim Jae-seung, 72. “I don’t read the newspaper or turn on the TV anymore. They are full of prejudice.”
Kim Yong-son, 70, took out his battered smartphone to show a video clip that depicted progressive leaders as fiercely undermining South Korea’s alliance with the United States and colluding with North Korea and China — viral content created by popular right-wing pastor, Reverend Jun Kwang-hoon.
In 1980 Chun Doo-hwanthe leader of the military junta that ruled the country at the time, justified the imposition of martial law by citing threats from “North Korean puppets” and “dangerous elements” at home.
While his own political troubles deepened after scandals and disasterMr. Yoon has more openly joined the radicalized political right. He accused unsympathetic journalists of spreading “fake news” and he called his political enemies supporters of “communist totalitarianism”. He even appointed a right-wing YouTuber as the head of a training center for civil servants.
Long before Mr. Yoon declared a state of emergency, some right-wing YouTubers encouraged him to take such action to deal with his domestic enemies. They also spread sinophobia, hinting that China is a secret manipulator of domestic politics in South Korea, including its elections. Rallies of his supporters often resound with calls to “expel the Chinese”. Mr. Yoon raised fears of Chinese spies as he defended his martial law.
Mr. Yoon and right-wing YouTubers also claim that election results in South Korea are no longer reliable. Pro-Yoon’s supporters often carry signs reading “Stop the Steal,” borrowing a phrase popularized by people in the United States who falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election ballot count was rigged against Mr. Trump. One of them , Shin Eun-ju, 52, said she believed the election fraud theory, citing “YouTube” as her source.
The police and the prosecutor’s office, as well as the electoral bodies, have long dismissed the accusations as unfounded. But when Mr. Yoon declared a state of emergency and also sent troops to the National Election Commission to investigate allegations of election fraud. Military officers involved in his emergency decree were instructed, prosecutors said, to seize the commission’s computer servers and jail senior election observers, tie them up, blindfold them and take them to an underground military bunker for questioning about election fraud. . (The outage ended before any computers were confiscated or people were taken away.)
Mr. Yoon and his lawyers have not commented on the specific charges, and have largely dismissed the sedition charges, calling his actions a legitimate exercise of presidential authority.
“It’s clear that the president lost his mind because of the outlandish conspiracy theories about vote fraud while watching low-quality YouTube channels,” said Cho Gab-je, a prominent conservative journalist.
Yoon’s lawyer, Yoon Kab-keun, said the election-rigging allegations were strong and divisive enough to merit an investigation.
Google Korea said it manages YouTube content according to its community guidelines.
Ironically, it was also YouTube this helped that the news about the declaration of a state of emergency Mr. Yoona went viral on the night of December 3, prompting citizens to rush to the National Assembly to delay the troop advance and buy time for opposition lawmakers to vote on martial law.
“It was a conflict between the different roles of the algorithms,” Mr. Hong said. “Algorithms help information go viral, but they also help you become their slave.”
