YouTuber Accused of Rigging Democratic Party Convention Poll Sues Kim Min-seok for Defamation

A YouTuber suspected of urging viewers to falsely state their regions of residence and ages during a preference opinion poll for the August 17 Democratic Party national convention has filed a criminal complaint against Democratic Party Leader Kim Min-seok.

The action claims that it was illegal to disclose his name and party membership status on social media without consent and to order an emergency inspection.

Lee Jong-won, the operator of the YouTube channel Sisatapa TV, submitted a complaint to the Public Crime Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency yesterday (September 4) charging Kim Min-seok with violations of the Personal Information Protection Act and defamation under the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection.

In the complaint, Lee argued that it was unlawful for leader Kim to post on X (formerly Twitter) on August 30 that regarding the controversy over rigged convention polls, he confirmed Lee Jong-won's party membership and issued a special directive to the Ethics Inspection Corps to conduct an emergency inspection and report on the necessity of emergency disciplinary action.

Lee claimed that Kim, who has access to party member information and command authority, violated the Personal Information Protection Act by publishing such a post based on information obtained during party duties, thereby publicizing sensitive information such as his ideology, beliefs, and political views.

He also argued that pointing him out as a party to the rigging controversy and making his real name public before a formal investigation into the convention poll rigging allegations had even begun constitutes defamation under the Information and Communications Network Act.

Lee added that Kim's publicizing of the initiation of disciplinary procedures against him externally before internal procedures were carried out constitutes a violation of the Political Parties Act.

In response, the Democratic Party announced, "Leader Kim ordered a review of party ethics violations based on the fact that Lee publicly announced his party membership during a Sisatapa TV broadcast on July 12. The party's legal affairs bureau will handle and respond to this matter."

Lee is currently under police investigation for obstructing the official duties of the party's central election management committee and polling agencies by encouraging viewers of his YouTube live broadcast on August 14 and 15 to respond to public opinion poll phone calls while falsifying their residences and ages.

The public opinion polls were conducted by allocating samples in proportion to the population by region, gender, and age. They were designed so that once the quota for respondents of a specific region, gender, or age was met, respondents matching those criteria could no longer participate in the survey.

This is why the Democratic Party filed a complaint against Lee, stating that he induced viewers to respond to the survey while disguising themselves as having unfulfilled quotas.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.