Pro-ruling party YouTuber stirs controversy over call to crush far-right community 'with tanks'

A pro-ruling party YouTuber has stirred controversy after calling for members of the far-right online community "Ilbe" to be "crushed with tanks."

Choi Wook made the remarks June 5 on his YouTube channel "Maebulshow," arguing that "Ilbe activity online must be clearly criminalized" and that the current system's tolerance of such communities had allowed them to become entertainment and culture.

"Ilbe is coming into the open, and the person these guys idolize is Chun Doo-hwan," Choi said. "We need to crush them online with tanks, the way he did — at least when it comes to criminal behavior."

Jung Jun-hee, an adjunct professor at Hanyang University's ERICA campus who appeared on the same broadcast, also made pointed remarks targeting some young people in their 20s and 30s. "It is absolutely necessary to pick up the club in a lawful way," he said, adding that the goal should not be to persuade them rationally but to "suppress them with power — through law and the system."

Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok pushed back Saturday in a Facebook post, saying that "sensitivity to the word 'tank' may vary from person to person" — for some, it evokes the May 18 Gwangju uprising with a heavy heart, while for others it passes as a meme without any such awareness. "But there must be consistency," he said.

Lee drew a pointed comparison: if a Starbucks marketing campaign using the phrase "Tank Day" had triggered a boycott, then a call to crush people "with tanks, like Chun Doo-hwan" should equally warrant a presidential response and calls by ruling party politicians for a boycott and removal, he said.

He added that the episode exposed a contradiction just two weeks after a May 18 eve event staged a performance titled "Ward off bad luck from Lee Jun-seok with Maebulshow" — a self-contradiction the show had revealed on its own.