Power blogger Druking to appear in court in online opinion rigging scandal

The power blogger arrested in connection with alleged online opinion rigging scandal will appear in court on Wednesday. 

The 48-year-old blogger surnamed Kim, known by his nickname “Druking,” is accused of masterminding an illegal online opinion rigging campaign.

Kim was charged along with two accomplices on April 17 for ramping up the number of “agree” clicks on a local search engine -- an equivalent of Facebook’s “Like” -- for specific comments posted on news stories.

The comments were critical of the Moon Jae-in administration’s decision to form a South-North joint women’s hockey team for February’s PyeongChang Winter Games.

The three are under suspicion of running an illegal software program in January to up-vote the comments on Naver, using 614 borrowed or fake ID’s, according to police.

The blogger, whose blog has been visited by nearly 10 million people, openly supported Moon during the 2017 presidential election. The suspect, however, reportedly turned against Moon after Kim Kyoung-soo of the ruling Democratic Party allegedly refused the blogger’s demand for the consul-general post in Osaka, Japan in return of his cyberspace activities for Moon.

The scandal led opposition political parties to call for a launch of a special counsel probe to investigate the dubious ties between the blogger and Rep. Kim, declaring the scandal unconstitutional.

Cheong Wa Dae, the presidential office, responded the launch of a special counsel “is to be decided through an agreement at the parliament among parties,” adding that they are not supposed to be a decision maker in the process.

By Bak Se-hwan (sh@heraldcorp.com)