Man in edited photo reacting to ex-South Korean leader's ouster, not post-election meeting

An old photo of a man winding up to throw a glass bottle at a television has been edited to make it appear as if he were reacting to a meeting between President Yoon Suk Yeol and opposition leader Lee Jae-myung in April 2024. The claim surfaced after Yoon went back on a pledge not to meet Lee, after his party suffered a disastrous election defeat. But the original image in fact shows a man reacting to news of then-president Park Geun-hye being ousted from office.

"The conservative response to the Yoon-Lee meeting," read a post on South Korea's far-right Ilbe forum from May 1, 2024.

"The public is in an uproar."

The post includes a photo showing a man apparently poised to hurl a glass bottle at a television broadcasting news of South Korean President Yoon Seok Yeol's first official meeting with opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung on April 29 (archived link).

Yoon had previously refused to meet Lee, citing a corruption investigation into him, in a move that shunned the presidential tradition of sitting down with the opposition leader shortly after taking office.

But the ruling party's crushing defeat in April's elections forced Yoon to invite Lee to his office, prompting a backlash from Yoon's supporters who accused the president of throwing aside his principles (archived link)

Similar claims were shared on Facebook and South Korean forums here, here and here.

Some social media users appeared to believe the picture was a genuine photo.

"This man feels betrayed as we do," one user commented.

"Even so, violence is not the answer," another wrote.

The picture, however, has been edited.

Doctored image

A keyword search on Google found the original image published by South Korean news organisation Newsis on March 10, 2017 (archived link).

The photo shows a man reacting to a television news broadcast about former president Park Geun-hye's removal from office.

Park became South Korea's first democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office in March 2017 when the constitutional court upheld a parliament vote to impeach her over a graft scandal that sparked huge street protests.

The image's caption reads: "A man throws a fit after watching news of Park Geun-hye's removal from office at the reception area in Gyeonggi province's Suwon station on the morning of the 10th."

Below is a screenshot comparison between the doctored image (left) and the photo published by Newsis in 2017 (right), with matching text at the bottom of both television screens highlighted by AFP:

The image was also included in Korean-language news reports on Money Today and Herald Business (archived links here and here).

Newsis also published a similar photo of the same man holding the bottle, as did Yonhap news agency (archived links here and here).

South Korean daily Kyeonggi Ilbo photographed the same man held by police, reporting that he was restrained by bystanders as he attempted to hit the television with his bottle (archived link).

A separate search found the TV screen in the doctored image corresponds to the 4:26 mark of a Channel A report on Yoon and Lee's meeting on April 29 (archived link).

AFP has debunked other false claims that have circulated since the April 10 elections here and here.