AND Aircraft collision in South Korea Last December, he left the Guen-Woo orphan park. The 22-year-old barely found a space for the mourning of his parents when he came across a torrent of internet abuse, conspiracy and malicious jokes about victims.
The Jaja aircraft, who returned from Bangkok, Thailand, crashed to the Muan International Airport on December 29 and exploded after scoring in a concrete barrier at the end of the runway, killing 179 of 181 people on board.
Police investigations have identified and arrested eight people accused of making derogatory and defamatory internet posts. They included suggestions that families “enthusiastic” received fees from the authorities, or that they were “false victims” – to the extent that some felt forced to prove that they had lost their loved ones.
Authorities have removed at least 427 such posts.
But this is not the first time that the bereaved families in South Korea have been met with internet abuse. In an interview with the BBC, experts have described a culture in which economic struggles, financial envy and social issues, such as toxic competitiveness, stimulate hate speech.
Financial resentment
Following Seouls Halloween crowds crushed 2022The victims and bereaved families are similarly smeared. The man who lost his son in the incident had a photo of a doctor’s doctors – showing him that he was laughing after he received a fee.
People whose loved ones died in Sweil Ferry, who sank in 2014 – a naval disaster where 304 killed people, mostly schoolchildren, have also been a target of hate speech for years.
In the tragedy, the Government paid an average of 420 million won ($ 292,840; 231,686 pounds) per victim – which initiated the comments that claimed that the figure was unreasonably high.
“People who live day by day consider the fee overrated and say that the bereaveds get” unfair treatment “and do a great deal when everyone’s life is difficult,” said Koo Jeong-woo, professor of sociology at Sungkyunan University, for the news of The Korea Herald.
In later comments from the BBC, Prof. Koo suggested that the economic stress and competitive labor market – especially after Coidida – left many people to feel socially isolated, deteriorating the issue of hate speech.
Many South Koreans, he says, “look at others not as their peers, but as opponents,” pointing to a wide culture of comparison in South Korea.
“We tend to compare a lot … If you put away someone else, it’s easier to feel superior,” he told the BBC. “That is why there is little tendencies in Korea to engage in hate speech or give derogatory remarks, with the aim of reducing others to rise.”
Mr. Park says that the families of the air accident victims are characterized as “the parasites that spend the money of nations.”
For example, it refers to a recent article on an emergency assistance fund of three million won (£ 2,055; £ 1,632), which was collected for bereaved donations. This article welcomed the flood of malicious comments, which many indicated on the wrong proposal to use taxpayers’ money for the Fund.
“It seems that the families of the Muan airport have hit Jackpot. They have to be secretly delighted,” said one such comment.
Mr. Park says these comments were “irresistible”.
“Even if there is a fee for an accident, how can we feel like it is reckless to spend when it is the cost of the life of our loved ones?” He says. “Each of these comments deeply reduces us. We are not here to make money.”
“Too many people, instead of being sensitive, builds their party on someone else’s suffering,” he adds. “When something like this happens, they belittle him and break out hatred.”
Joshua Uyheng, professor of psychology in the Philippines studying online, says hatred is often “directed toward [those] We believe that they gain a certain advantage at our expense. ”
“We feel hatred when we are [think we] They get a short end of the stick. “
‘Utilizing others’ pain’
In the case of an air accident, the political dynamics only worsened things.
The accident came in the midst of a period of political restlessness in South Korea, with the country called the suspended shock of President Yoon’s Decision, Suk Yela, to pass a martial arts – an incident that has politically divided the country.
Many supporters of the Party of Right-wing President Yoon, without evidence, have blamed the guilt for the collision at the main opposition democratic party (DP), pointing to the fact that the Muan Airport was originally built as part of the political bite by DP.
“The Muan airport tragedy is a disaster created by a man caused by DP,” read one comment on YouTube. The second described it as “100% guilt” of the party.
The Han-Shin Park, whose brother died in a plane crash, says he was accused of being a member of the DP and a “false family member”. These claims are so extensive that his daughter has taken to social media to invite them.
“It hurts deeply when I see my father, who lost his brother in such a tragedy, labeled a” fraudster “. I am also worried that that disinformation could list my father to make the wrong decisions from despair,” she wrote on topics two days after the incident.
Han-shin park says he’s stunned that people “enjoy using someone else’s pain”.
“It’s just not something a person should do,” BBC said.
“I’m just an ordinary citizen. I’m not here to get into politics. I came to find out the truth about the death of my younger brother.”
Although there are no perfect solutions for hatred, experts say that companies on social networks should establish policies about what represents hate speech and moderate content posted on their platforms.
“The users on the network should be able to smoothly report malicious posts and comments, and platform companies must actively delete such content,” says Pro Koo. The law agencies should also take the perpetrators to the task, he adds.
The reminder of people of their common identity can also help, says Prof Uyheng.
“The fewer people feel that they are in the opposite parts of the game from zero, they may be more to feel that tragedies like this common concern of all of us – and that the victims deserve empathy and compassion, not Vitiola and condemnation.”
