The National Museum of Korea, which had made the 'Seomin Professor Special Lecture' private, reopens it after controversy

Museum officials: "Many personal attack comments toward Professor Seo, undergoing review process"

Professor Seomin, Dankook University College of Medicine. Photo by National Museum of Korea YouTube

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Seul-gi] It has been confirmed that the official YouTube channel of the National Museum of Korea switched the lecture video titled "Why Should We Read Books?" by Professor Seo-min from Dankook University College of Medicine to private. On the 28th, the museum stated, "There were many personal attacks and malicious comments against Professor Seo, so we changed the video to private and then made it public again."

According to a report by Maeil Business Newspaper on the same day, the museum's YouTube channel set all three lecture videos by Professor Seo to private on the 24th. The museum had been selecting Professor Seo as the "Lecture Person of the Month" every Wednesday this month and releasing his lecture videos on the official YouTube channel.

As controversy arose over the video being set to private, the museum explained that the reason for switching to private was due to malicious comments related to Professor Seo and "recent issues." A museum official explained, "We temporarily set the videos to private to check if there was any inappropriate content in the videos and then reviewed them." The videos were made public again that afternoon.

Regarding this, former Dongyang University professor Jin Joong-kwon criticized on his Facebook post that day, saying, "The National Museum of Korea is also 'Moonppa' (a derogatory term for those who blindly support President Moon Jae-in). They won during the last presidential election."

Previously, Professor Seo co-authored the book "A Country Never Experienced Before (The Black Book of Cho Kuk)" with former professor Jin and others on the 25th of last month. "The Black Book of Cho Kuk" contains criticism of President Moon and former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk. This led to speculation that the rejection and malicious comments from President Moon's supporters toward Professor Seo influenced the decision to set the lecture videos to private.

A museum official explained, "Regardless of the content of Professor Seo's lecture, there were too many comments questioning why a government institution would spend taxpayers' money on such a speaker and many personal attack comments."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.