Photo of former South Korean president altered to add ‘pro-Japanese’ message

The collage was also shared with similar claims on Facebook here, here and here.

The messages came a day before outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is set to meet with current South Korean leader Yoon Suk Yeol for a final round of talks, hoping to cement ties before he leaves office (archived link).

The two nations have long been at odds over historical issues related to Japan’s brutal occupation of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, including sexual slavery and forced labor.

Comments left by several users indicated that they believed the posts.

“What hypocrites, the audacity to accuse others of being pro-Japanese when they are the real slaves,” wrote one.

“Typical leftists, different inside and out,” said another.

Image doctored

A reverse image search on Google revealed that the original photo of Moon and his grandson had previously circulated on South Korean forums in 2017 here, here and here (archived links here, here and here).

The card held by the couple read: “A strong president, Moon Jae-in. Grandpa is the best.”

Below is a screenshot comparing the edited image in the collage (left) and the image shared in 2017 (right):

The 2017 posts attributed the photo to Democratic Party lawmaker Ki Dong-min, who campaigned with Moon in that year’s presidential election (archived link).

A corresponding photo showing Moon holding the unedited sign was posted on Ki’s Facebook account, where he goes by the name Dongmin Gi, on April 27, 2017 (archived link).

“The slogan reads: ‘A strong president, grandfather is the best!’ No smile leaves the lips of grandfather candidate Moon Jae-in,” Ki wrote in the caption of the post.

Below is the image shared on the forums in 2017 (left) and the photo posted by Ki on Facebook in April 2017 (right):

Ki’s photo was also cited by several South Korean media outlets at the time, including the JoongAng Ilbo and the Chosun Ilbo (archived links here and here).

Japanese animation

An additional reverse image search revealed that the photo of Moon Joon-yong featured in the collage had been published earlier by the Money Today Journal May 18, 2017 (archived link).

The article said the photo shows the younger Moon in an interview shortly after his father was elected president. The article made no comments about Japan.

Below is a screenshot comparing Moon Joon-yong’s image in the collage (left) and the one published by Money Today (right):

A keyword search of the alleged quote led to a report by the far-right online newspaper MediaWatch that attacked former President Moon for his family’s alleged ties to Japan (archived link).

According to the MediaWatch report, Moon Joon-yong made the comments in an interview with the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper in December 2018 (archived link).

The Kyunghyang Shinmun featured him talking about the influence of Japanese animation on his career, but nowhere is he directly quoted as saying, “I am here today because of Japanese animation.”

AFP has previously denied similar reports criticizing Moon for his alleged pro-Japanese leanings.