PPP emergency committee’s first recruit Park Sang-soo is in controversy over misogynistic remarks

Emergency Committee Chairman Han Dong-hoon and Majority Leader Yoon Jae-ok pose for a photo with Park Sang-soo, a lawyer specializing in school violence, after giving him a party jumper during a welcome ceremony for new members of the People‘s Power at the National Assembly on Monday. Yonhap News Agency.

A number of extreme misogynistic remarks and personal attacks against fellow lawyers have been posted on a legal community run by lawyer Park Sang-soo, the first recruit by Han Dong-hoon, emergency committee chairman of the ruling People’s Power Party (PPP).

Han said on January 5 that "there will be no place in our party for those who use extreme hate speech that the public does not sympathize with at all." However, some criticized Park, the first recruit, to have neglected hate speech as a community operator. Park, who stepped down from the management team of the community, said he has regulated hate speech by community members without compromising their freedom of expression.

Lawinus, which was created by Park in 2011, is an online community where some 20,000 lawyers and law school students join and share their opinions. As of January 9, the community's signup page listed Park as the Personal Information Protection Officer and Operator, and the person in charge has been changed.

The community became controversial amid the Me Too movement in prosecutors' offices, which was triggered by former prosecutor Seo Ji-hyun’s revelation in February 2018, with posts containing extreme misogynistic remarks, such as "Women are potential prostitutes" and "Women are potential infant murderers.” Misogynistic posts were posted on Lawinus up until last month. Some users said in their posts about fertility rates, "Feminism is like communism, and people who are eliminated from competitions agree with communism," and "Pretty women don't advocate feminism."

In the legal circle, there have been criticisms that the former and current management team of the website, including Park, allowed hate speech to go unchecked. A lawyer, who is also a member of Lawinus, said on the 9th, "There are often posts that criticize specific people, and even if the victims file a complaint it's difficult to punish writers because they cannot identify the suspects, so it seems to be out of control.”

Park said in a phone interview, “As there is a court ruling that online community managers cannot arbitrarily delete posts uploaded by members, if posts in a community are deleted without permission, management may be sued or accused." He explained, "So, the Lawinus management has introduced a “blind (automation) system” to block access to certain posts if they are constantly reported complaints from members.”

“Lawinus also has a positive function for legal professionals to anonymously expose and publicize their grievances," adding, "In fact, there were some cases where a judge was even disciplined for sexual misconduct,” Park said. "In the first half of last year, I stepped down from the management team. I did the best I could as a manager in a space where free speech was allowed."

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.