Hundreds of South Korean citizens – as many as 202 – have been detained by the government since January on charges of propagating fake news and revealing private information.
The “private information” referred to is information collected by authorities under the so-called 3T strategy: “trace, test and treat,” which privacy activists say in itself is a violation of privacy.
Most of the charges stem from what authorities say are citizens involved in anti-government protests over what is believed to be fabricated coronavirus testing data.
At the center of police interest is the Sarang Jeil Church and a handful of videos posted on YouTube that claim to be of phone conversations between officials and citizens that prove the Korean government is deliberately inflating the number of positive coronavirus cases, ostensibly to expand its epidemic response.