Sip-Al-Dan in 2012
Whereas the 2016 US election was meddled with by foreign forces—Russian and Macedonian fake news factories—Korea’s 2012 election revealed infiltration by the country’s internal government agency (NIS), which was supposed to maintain political neutrality.
Furthermore, a far-right evangelical group, often called by the moniker "Sip-Al-Dan" (십알단, meaning “Crusades Comment Troops”), engaged in an illegal online campaign during this period. They set up a fake social media company composed of seven employees who generated aggressive social media comments against the opposition party candidate. The then-failed opposition candidate, Moon Jae-In, re-ran the campaign in 2016 and became the current president with a landslide victory. The Sip-Al-Dan later turned out to be linked to the NIS’s Cyber Squad as a part of its comment troops.
Watch this investigative report on NIS's illegal online manipulation during the presidential campaign.