Yoon Hee-seok "Taming Portals? Does That Still Work These Days?"

Yeo Spokesperson, CBS Radio Interview
"Criticism of Kim Yuna as Pressure? It's a Problem of Those Who Accept It"

Yoon Hee-seok, spokesperson for the People Power Party, responded to the Democratic Party's criticism of the portal site 'Daum' regarding allegations of manipulation on the Hangzhou Asian Games Korea-China men's soccer support page, calling it 'portal taming,' by saying, "A portal is not an animal, so what is there to tame?"

In an interview on CBS Radio's 'Kim Hyun-jung's News Show' on the 5th, Spokesperson Yoon said, "Do you think people these days can be tamed, pressured, or forced to do something? Does that work?" He added, "Using such terms itself seems to be an attempt to frame this situation as a political confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties."

Yoon Hee-seok, Spokesperson for the People Power Party [Photo by Yonhap News]

Spokesperson Yoon pointed out, "I don't understand the intention behind the opposition party thinking, 'Maybe it was a joke, so why be so sensitive?' or 'Isn't this being used politically?'" He added, "We still carry the trauma from the Druking opinion manipulation incident."

He continued, "Regarding this matter, both ruling and opposition parties should have a sense of problem and cooperate to block the possibility of opinion manipulation. This is not an issue to be viewed as 'Why does the People Power Party do this? The Democratic Party doesn't do it.'"

Regarding Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism nominee Yoo In-chon’s comment on singer Kim Yuna, who criticized the discharge of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, saying she should be 'careful with public expressions,' Spokesperson Yoon argued, "If one interprets that the minister pressured a single celebrity in that way, then that is the problem of the person who accepted it that way."

Earlier, Hong Ik-pyo, floor leader of the Democratic Party, criticized Yoo’s remarks, saying, "The political sphere picking apart each statement by celebrities is itself a process of creating a kind of blacklist."

Spokesperson Yoon said, "People keep interpreting anything slightly annoying as an attack or calling it a blacklist, but I cannot understand that logical structure." He added, "Whether someone becomes a minister or not, the perspective that interprets that as pressure is too political."

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