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| A captured image shows Rhyu Si-min, the chief of Roh Moo-hyun Foundation, in the first episode of his newly launched YouTube talk show "Rhyu Si-min's Alileo," Friday. / Yonhap |
By Park Ji-won
YouTube is becoming a new battleground for Korean politicians as conservative and liberal bigwigs are opening their own channels to promote their ideas about current issues.
Former Welfare Minister Rhyu Si-min, a popular liberal politician, and Hong Joon-pyo, former leader of the biggest conservative Liberty Korea Party (LKP), have found a following among Korean voters with their broadcasts.
Rhyu released the first episode of his YouTube talk show titled "Rhyu Si-min's Alileo" under the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation's official channel and a podcast in Podbbang, Korea's leading podcast platform, on Saturday. He has been serving as the head of the foundation since October.
In the first episode, Rhyu invited Moon Chung-in, mentor to President Moon Jae-in on foreign and North Korea affairs, and they discussed North Korean issues. The video went viral and was viewed about 1.54 million times as of Sunday. "Our channel will become a navigator to help people to find background and key information of policies," he declared in the video, adding he will likely invite more incumbent political heavyweights to his videos to promote his political agenda.
The organization's channel, which had about 90,000 subscribers until recently, already attracted more than 422,000 subscribers in total as of Sunday and is quickly racking up numbers thanks to the release of Rhyu's first video. It has exceeded the number of subscribers of Hong's new YouTube channel with about 212,000.
Rhyu's move is not only to publicize the Moon Jae-in administration's policies by using his popularity as a "celebrity" but also to secure popularity for the ruling camp ahead of the 2020 general election and 2022 presidential election, critics say.
Chung Doo-un, former lawmaker of the Saenuri Party, said, "He didn't officially announce his bid for the presidency, but it is part of his political activities to attract support from broadcasting and YouTube."
Rhyu also used the video to indirectly undermine his conservative rival Hong's channel "TV Hongka Cola" by saying, "We are going to think based on factual evidence (unlike that of Hong's channel)." Hong's channel is one of most popular channels among conservatives.
Hong is also expanding his political presence on YouTube. He recently hired former MBC anchorwoman Bae Hyun-jin as chief producer of his channel. Bae, who joined the LKP last year to become a lawmaker, has quit her job as spokeswoman for the LKP's reform committee to join the channel. He still hasn't clearly declared his bid for the presidency, but critics expect he will run for president if he can secure enough conservatives' support on YouTube.
The former LKP chief immediately commented on the release of Rhyu's video in one of his videos "If you are entering into the field of YouTube to be used by the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) or become a presidential nominee for the party, it will be a good fight (with me). Please come in. Let's do this."
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