Culture

Colombia’s anti-government protests | Part 2: fighting hate speech with K-pop

by Adriaan Alsema

Colombia’s anti-government protesters hilariously disrupted a social media offensive by far-right supporters of former President Alvaro Uribe with absurdist K-pop memes on Wednesday.

The “Uribistas” tried to discredit the indigenous participation in the opposition protests with hashtags that promoted racism and the National Police, which has violently tried to quell the largely peaceful manifestations.

Colombia’s anti-government protests | Part 1: fighting fascism with carnival

The racist and authoritarian hashtags went viral as planned, but because they were hijacked by absurdist trolls who  massively began promoting Korean pop music.

If the K-poppers are with us, who’s against us?

Journalist Felix de Bedout

While most Tweets were hilariously nonsensical as K-pop is barely a thing in Colombia, other tweets were explicitly political.

One Tweet that was tagged “#ThankYouPresident,” explicitly told Duque “we’re fed up with you,” for example.

Another Tweet reminded the “Uribistas” of President Ivan Duque’s Democratic Center party that their online hate campaigns lost effect and that K-pop star Kim Hyun-joong was cute.

Another Tweet called for the election of K-pop star Kim Namjoon as president of Colombia.

The political trolling campaign was arguably the most absurd since Colombia was connected to the internet, yet surprisingly effective.

Every attempt by government-loyal trolls to promote Duque, smear opposition Senator Gustavo Petro or incite hatred against ethnic minorities were neutralized immediately.

The ongoing anti-government protests have been accompanied by a massive attempt to censor independent media or close social media accounts, but with adverse effects.

The anti-fascist trolls ended up promoting the non-existent ambitions of Korean pop stars to become president of Colombia next year while destroying attempts to smear government opponents.