Jon Dunbar is a copy editor at The Korea Times, as well as editor of the Foreign Community page and curator of the Korea Times Archive. If you have suggestions for possible articles, or wish to contribute articles yourself, contact jdunbar@koreatimes.co.kr.
Facebook shuts down 'OinK - Only in Korea' group
A screencapture shows that Facebook is reviewing the second OinK group, created last week after the closure of the main group. The original group has disappeared without a trace or possibility of review. Courtesy of Travis Hull
By Jon Dunbar
By Jon Dunbar
One of the largest Korea-based online communities disappeared from the internet around 1 p.m. last Wednesday. According to its founder Travis Hull and moderators, Facebook deleted the 28,000-member group “OinK ― Only in Korea” without warning or explanation.
“Absolutely no word from the folks at Facebook so far,” Hull told The Korea Times. “We have petitioned Facebook to review their decision via a link they provide in their help section, but so far we have received no comment from the company and I'm not holding my breath that we will.”
Blame started flying immediately after the group disappeared, with nobody fully sure what caused the sudden removal. Speculation ranged from too many posts flagged for racism or “anti-racist” moderators limiting free speech, to a discussion about an actual crime, in which a member accused another of a serious crime and threats of retaliation were made.
There was also speculation Facebook algorithms may have reacted to a new weekly feature allowing users to promote their own social media content, titled “Whore Yourself Wednesdays.”
“We might never know what caused our removal as Facebook is notorious for not revealing such details when they make decisions like this,” Hull said. “We suspect certain posts were reported to Facebook and that triggered an algorithm within their system which caused our removal. It doesn't seem from appearance that much human thought went into the decision, if any.”
Immediately after the group went missing, moderators created a second group and started inviting members to rejoin. It reached 844 members on Tuesday afternoon, at which point Facebook disabled it as well, posting a notice that it had “content that goes against our community standards.” The page is currently under a Facebook review to determine whether it should be restored or permanently deleted.
Meanwhile, the
remains untouched, with over 5,400 followers. Facebook pages are run differently from groups, emphasizing posts from page owners and accumulating followers rather than members. OinK is also active on
on
and has its own
.
Various other imitator groups and pages bearing a similar name also exist, some run by banned members to rival the original.
“I also own
which I plan to develop as a failsafe against being de-platformed completely in the future,” said Hull, who lived in Korea for 10 years and has run OinK for five years.
“If OinK is allowed to disappear the independent media environment in Korea will take yet another loss. Aside from that, we are likely the most active community of expats in Korea. Sure, people gripe and complain on OinK, but we take Korea for what it is at OinK, and we love both the good and the bad aspects of the country and take pleasure in highlighting those idiosyncrasies for others.”
Originally started as a light-hearted group among friends for sharing humorous posts, OinK gained a reputation, as it grew, for toxic discussions that often devolved into racism, cyberbullying and defamation. Group moderators were unable to police all active conversations 24 hours a day, and their decisions tended to receive flak. Banned members are known to have rallied on other platforms and created troll accounts to re-enter OinK.
“We are suffering from troll infestation and harassment by individuals who couldn't live up to our community standards,” Hull said.
“Running a large group like OinK is a massive challenge for myself and the admins on our team, but we look forward to the challenge because we are all genuinely interested in Korea and promoting it to the world. We are happy to serve the community that has been loyal to us through the last five years and plan to continue to do so well into the future. OinK isn't going anywhere.”
A Facebook Korea representative told The Korea Times that Facebook does not usually comment on cases like this.
Jon Dunbar