Doctored 'Yoon Suk Yeol supporters' image surfaces after party loses South Korea by-election

"This is how the youth really feel," reads the Korean-language claim shared alongside the doctored image here on Facebook on October 18.

It purports to show a crowd largely made up of young people hoisting a giant white banner with the words: "President Yoon Suk Yeol, we love you."

The image surfaced after Yoon's ruling People Power Party lost by a large margin to the main opposition Democratic Party in a by-election for Gangseo District chief in the capital Seoul on October 10. The race was widely considered a bellwether for the country's general election in April next year (archived link).

Polls released in the days following the election showed around two-thirds of the country disapproved of the president, raising alarm in the ruling party, according to local reports here and here (archived links here and here).

One poll released by Gallup Korea on October 20 found the president is unpopular among young people. It found 62 percent of respondents under 30 years old said they disapproved of Yoon's performance while only 24 percent approved (archived link).

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A screenshot of the claim shared on Facebook. Captured October 25, 2023

The doctored image was also shared on Facebook here and here, as well as here on Naver Band, a South Korean forum.

Comments under the posts indicate some users took the image to be genuine.

"Please share this image widely, people have to know what true public opinion is," one user wrote.

"These are the real youths, not those commies who protest," wrote another.

Tree-planting event

Through a reverse image search on Google, AFP found the original image published in a report from the South Korean daily Kyunghyang Shinmun on April 5, 2019, showing Seoul-based students and company workers holding up a banner promoting a tree-planting campaign in the city (archived link).

The event predates Yoon's presidency, which began on May 10, 2022 (archived link).

The original banner shows people planting trees around an outline of Seoul's geographic boundaries, alongside text that reads, "Seoul, breathing together."

Below is a screenshot comparison between the doctored image (left) and the original image published in the 2019 report (right):

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A screenshot comparison between the doctored image (left) and the original image published in a 2019 report by newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun (right)

According to the report, the image shows an event organised by an alliance of 15 companies and two universities based in Seoul to donate and plant 3,000 trees across the city in celebration of Arbor Day.

Arbor Day, which falls on April 5 in South Korea, is regarded as a national celebration to promote tree-planting, forests and gardening, according to the country's Ministry of Culture (archived link).

The genuine image was also published on the website of Sookmyung Women's University, one of the schools that took part in the event, and in an April 2019 web report (archived links here and here).

Footage of the group planting tree saplings was published on YouTube by MTN, a South Korean broadcaster, on April 5, 2019 (archived link).