Image of South Korean politicians holding chopsticks misrepresented online

Yahoo

2 days ago

"The Democratic Party has no shame. Now they're doing the unimaginable en masse," reads part of a Korean-language Facebook post shared on May 28, 2025.
A picture attached to the post shows several Democratic Party lawmakers and politicians holding up single chopsticks.
"Of course, you all think you're Lee Jae-myung's son, so Lee Dong-ho is like a brother to you," the post continues, referring to the Democratic Party presidential contender and his son.
The post surfaced shortly after the final debate before South Korea's June 3 presidential election, which was triggered by former leader Yoon Suk Yeol's removal from office following his failed martial law bid (archived link).
According to The Korea Herald, Reform Party candidate Lee Jun-seok asked Lee Jae-myung and Kwon Young-gook of the Democratic Labor Party if it could be considered misogynistic if someone said, "I want to put a chopstick inside a woman's genitals" (archived link).
The question was a reference to online comments alleged to have been made by Lee Jae-myung's son in 2020.
Lee Jun-seok was roundly criticised following the debate for his use of sexually explicit language on national television (archived link).
The same image was also used in similar posts that circulated widely among conservative social media users opposed to Lee Jae-myung and his Democratic Party, including prominent members of the rival People Power Party.
The image, however, has been misrepresented.
A keyword search found it shows a frame from a video posted on the official Instagram account of Democratic Party lawmaker Park Joo-min on May 14 (archived link).
"The reason why we diligently brought our chopsticks -- number 1 challenge started by lawmaker Jung Chung-rae," reads its caption.
The full video shows Park and other Democratic Party politicians each holding up a single chopstick, remarking that "even chopsticks say number one," a reference to Lee Jae-myung's candidate number on the ballot (archived link).
Ryu Sam-yeong, one of the other politicians in the clip, said in a May 28 Instagram post that the video was filmed at Sagye Market in Seoul's Dongjak district following a day of campaigning (archived link).
"This image was taken from footage filmed on May 13 and shows lawmakers Park Joo-min, Jeon Hyeon-hee, and others holding up chopsticks to symbolise the number one, encouraging support for the first candidate on the ballot," Ryu wrote.
He also pointed out the video was filmed before the debate that brought the controversy about the chopsticks remark back into the spotlight.
The timing "proves the claim is false" and posts spreading the claim do so "with clearly malicious intent", he told AFP over the phone on June 2.
AFP has debunked more misinformation swirling around South Korea's election here, here and here.