A member of the Congressional Special Investigation Committee for the NIS scandal, said yesterday that highly derogatory buzzwords were proliferated by the NIS agents.
In an interview with the CBS radio station, Kim Hyun, a Democratic United Party congressman said that the NIS agents proliferated use of the buzzwords like thornback on the web. Thornback is a very insulting word designating those who are from Jeolla province. Thornback ray is one of the specialty foods of Jeolla province and it is well known by its stink since it is usually eaten fermented. I’d like to add that it is the Korean equivalent of nigger.
While Kim asserts the NIS took the lead in using the term and Ilbe expanded the use, I am reserving my judgment on that. The use of thornback has a long history than the NIS intervention’s. However, as now we see that the NIS conducted engineering of public opinion extensively at the agency level, there is a possibility that the NIS considerably contributed the proliferation of the highly derogatory terms.
His assertion would be verified by comparing the agency’s promotion of the term and the spread of the web-wide use of the term. If it is true, I’d like to comment that the NIS committed an anti-national crime.
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