The modern world is so confusing that it’s become almost impossible to discern what is objectively “real” from what is merely currently held public opinion. Sometimes what is actually true sounds like a conspiracy theory, or maybe that’s just what they want you to think. In any case, most of us are already aware of the danger lurking behind cynically employed terms such as “fake news,” and that our perspectives are increasingly manipulated by dubious sources with their own agendas we are continually unaware of.
Yet is Sang-jin (Son Suk-ku) the journalistic hero of Ahn Gooc-jin’s Troll Factory (댓글부대, Daetguelbudae) already too far down the rabbit hole to be able to see the light? He’s fond of saying that “the path of a journalist is dark and lonely, but his courage changes the world,” while simultaneously admitting the “thrill” of leaking a secret that no one else knows. It’s possible he’s over romanticised his role in events and is reading more into things than is really there because at the end of the day he wants to believe which obviously leaves him dangerously open to manipulation.
In some ways, he starts his story with a more positive framing explaining that the first candlelight protests took place in the early days of the internet so they weren’t able to get the information out there fast enough to attract large enough crowds to make a difference while approximately a third of the entire population turned out in 2017 and got President Park Geun-hye impeached. Of course, that’s only good news if you’re on the same side as the protestors, and Sang-jin increasingly hints that the internet has been bought up by big business which obviously wouldn’t be. Sang-jin has a particular bugbear with a company named Manjun that was forced to offer a public apology for its corrupt business practices which were exposed thanks to the protests against the government scandal. He’s suckered into writing an article exposing them to help a small IT company that says Manjun scuppered its attempts to win a government contract then poached its employees and stole its technology.
Though Sang-jin is able to publish the piece, Manjun refute it and cast doubt on the CEO’s evidence. Sang-jin is relentlessly trolled online and the CEO takes his own life with many blaming Sang-jin for allowing him to face this kind of harassment because of his own petty vendetta against Manjun and desire for journalistic glory. Yet the young man who comes to him with another story that he was employed by Manjun to run extreme PR and harassing campaigns online may not be so different in that one of their targets also took her own life after being humiliated on the internet. They were hired to get her father to stop his one man protest against the defamation laws by pushing her into suing the people trolling her. Sadly she made a much more final decision, but her father did stop protesting so technically they still achieved their goal.
As he later says, truth mixed with lies feels more real than the actual truth. It doesn’t seem implausible that a large corporation would be doing this sort of thing. It’s not unheard of that people are paid to write product reviews for products they’ve never used or to write negative reviews of a rival business to cause them reputational damage. It stands to reason that they’d be briefing against their enemies online and trying to mitigate any negative energy by manipulating public opinion. We’ve seen this done demonstrably with bots during elections. But Sang-jin still can’t seem to critically inspect his sources and never really stops to wonder if the young man opposite him in an otherwise empty coffee shop is making all this up just to troll him personally, or in fact from the conspiracy theorist’s perspective, to permanently discredit him so that his criticisms of Manjun will never be given any credence.
In the end, it’s him that seems like a crank resorting to posting lengthy rants on the internet because the respectable papers won’t trust him anymore now that all his scoops have been discredited. Is he right that Manjun and possibly others are running large scale “Public Opinion Task Forces” or Troll Factories online, or did he just get trolled himself and can’t let it go? In the opinion of some, he is now the troll peddling his conspiracy theories online and craving the attention of going viral with another sensationalist story. But even if not all of it’s true, that doesn’t mean it’s all lies and Sang-jin maybe onto something even if it’s just that the internet make trolls of us all as we become lost in the infinitely confusing labyrinth of what is objectively “true” and what merely a convenient lie to serve those who are in “reality” already in power or simply would wish to be.
Trailer (Korean subtitles only)
Windows on Worlds 