Facebook post by Joo Jin-woo, Member of the People Power Party 

Editorial Board Member, Korea Military Academy Class of '84The recently introduced "Account Nationality and Connection Point Display Feature" on X (formerly Twitter) has revealed a previously unseen reality. Some accounts, which used South Korean flag profiles and Korean names to pose as South Koreans, were shown to be connecting from China. It has been confirmed that these accounts have posted tens of thousands of political posts since 2019, supporting the Democratic Party and attacking the opposing party.

Accounts like 'Monarchs' Democracy' posted dozens of times a day. This is not a personal hobby but a form of organized work, and such public opinion manipulation activities are similar to the typical external public opinion manipulation patterns of China, which have already been detected in several countries including Australia, Canada, and the United States. 

1. Orchestrating Forces Manipulating Public Opinion and Political Forces Swayed by Public Opinion Manipulation 

China is a country where Twitter is blocked by the "Great Firewall," and even personal VPNs are subject to crackdowns, making it impossible to engage in such comment activities from China without the approval of public security or intelligence agencies, according to expert analysis. If the Chinese public security is involved in public opinion manipulation, it becomes a national security issue.

While the 2014 Druking incident was a domestic political scandal involving domestic politicians using a domestic manipulation team to distort public opinion through comment manipulation, the current case is strongly suspected of involving Chinese intelligence agencies in manipulating South Korean public opinion and supporting and attacking a specific political faction. This is an invasion of information warfare through public opinion manipulation on a different level than the Druking incident. Suspicions of public opinion intervention by certain Chinese organizations provide an opportunity to examine, analyze, and find solutions for our overall public opinion surveys.

2. Public Opinion Manipulation: Malignant Political Maneuvering That Shakes the Foundation of Democracy 

In indirect democracy, it is impossible to gauge the opinion of the entire public in real-time, so public opinion polls are used to understand the thoughts and sentiments of the populace and to inform policy-making. Sometimes, public opinion polls are used to distinguish between positive and negative aspects of state affairs and the good or bad conduct of specific politicians. Publicly released opinion polls have a significant impact on public sentiment and judgment. Democracy can only be established when true and transparent public opinion and public judgment are freely formed. If public opinion is manipulated, angels can be turned into witches, and conversely, witches can be made to appear as angels.

When domestic and foreign orchestrating forces manipulate and disrupt public opinion, indirect democracy is reduced to a mere facade and loses its function. It is highly probable that public opinion is created with a specific individual in mind, that candidates are elected based on this manufactured public opinion, and that policies are formulated following this manipulated public opinion. Public opinion manipulation is a 21st-century political maneuver and an act of destroying human civilization. 

Public opinion manipulation is not simply about changing numbers. It has evolved into a form of "soft power manipulation" that eliminates the voices of specific factions, parties, and social classes through systematic exclusion, such as framing questions favorably to a particular faction and "screening respondents" by stating "you are not a survey respondent." It manipulates unfavorable public opinion statistics for specific individuals and factions.

This is a criminal act that undermines the core assets of democracy – "fairness and truth" – by damaging social trust capital, much like currency counterfeiting disrupts economic order. It counterfeits these essential elements of democracy.

3. A Comprehensive Review and Analysis of the State of Public Opinion Surveys is Necessary 

With the prolonged manipulation of public opinion, few citizens trust opinion polls. The crisis in the reliability of opinion polls is not merely a technical error. It is a structural act of destruction that threatens the foundation of democracy. It is imperative to expose the breeding ground for public opinion manipulation, which includes issues of respondent anonymity, opinion poll commissions with private agendas, opinion poll firms lacking expertise, and cartels between pseudo-media outlets.

Currently, there are approximately 90 opinion poll firms registered with the National Election Opinion Polls Deliberation Commission. While the number is large, it is said that less than one-third of these organizations possess core competencies in statistics, sampling, and survey design. Despite the rapid increase in the number of firms, the low registration criteria create significant structural opportunities for "soft manipulation" due to a lack of expertise, biased survey design, and sample exclusion. Although there is a reporting and registration system with the Deliberation Commission, some opinion polls by media companies are exempt from reporting, creating blind spots in control.

▲ Reforming Opinion Poll Firms: First, strengthen the registration criteria for opinion poll firms to prevent the proliferation of unqualified organizations. Second, establish a completely independent agency (OPC) to verify samples, questions, and data before and after the survey to fundamentally block manipulation possibilities. Third, restore fairness and transparency to opinion polls by adopting blockchain-based data storage and a joint responsibility system for commissionaires and media.

▲ Random Extraction of Public Opinion Survey Population: The population from which opinion poll subjects are drawn is crucial. If the population is already skewed in a particular direction, the opinion poll is meaningless. A completely independent national audit system, such as an "Opinion Poll Verification Agency (OPC)," should be introduced to guarantee scientific transparency. 

▲ Strengthen the joint responsibility of opinion poll commissioners and media to fundamentally block the channels of manipulation distribution. Only through such institutional innovation can public trust in opinion polls be restored, and the damage to democracy be prevented.

▲ Introduction of Nationality-based Real-Name System for Naver and Daum: Currently, Naver and Daum, after a Constitutional Court ruling in 2012 declaring the "self-verification system" unconstitutional, only verify "if the person is real" through mobile phones or i-PINs, while nicknames and anonymous usage are maintained. This means that overseas IPs, multiple accounts, and VPN accounts are not completely blocked, leaving vulnerabilities for public opinion manipulation. If immediate nationality disclosure is difficult, alternative measures such as data integrity guarantee for comments and opinion data, independent audit systems, and public opinion manipulation detection algorithms should be proposed to enhance transparency. 

Public opinion manipulation is a precursor to fraudulent elections. To manipulate election results, it is first necessary to create an expectation value manipulation, instilling in voters the atmosphere that "it is obvious this candidate will win." If public opinion is distorted, the fairness of the election is already undermined. If changing ballots is election fraud, then changing the flow of majority opinion is public opinion manipulation. The two differ only in method, but both are fraudulent election schemes and acts of destroying liberal democracy.

Manipulated public opinion devoid of truth is a compass that points in the opposite direction. The sentiments of the people and the military call for reliable opinion polls based on truth and fairness. 

By an Editorial Board Member of Hanmi Ilbo