Labour union rally misrepresented as investors' protest in South Korea
- Published on August 12, 2026 at 06:10
- 3 min read
- By Sammy HEUNG, Hawon Jung, AFP Hong Kong, AFP South Korea
As sharp plunges in the South Korean stock market dealt heavy losses to investors at the end of July 2026, posts resurfaced a video of a labour union protest with a false claim it showed disgruntled speculators rallying. The footage was filmed weeks before the rout and actually shows the country's umbrella labour group fighting for the right of subcontracted workers to directly bargain with businesses.
"I have to say, South Korean investors are truly united. When they take losses, they collectively fight for their rights!" says a simplified Chinese X post shared on July 29.
The post includes a clip showing rows of people sitting on the street and huge banners fluttering in the wind as vehicles pass by.
The Kospi index plummeted to its lowest level in months in late July, as tech firms were battered by fresh worries over the AI boom and a report of a breakthrough that could boost China's chip industry (archived link).
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, South Korea's leading memory chip producers, make up about 50 percent of the tech-focused Kospi index. As they reported feverish growth earlier this year, South Korea introduced aggressive new single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds tied to each of the two firms, with a promise to deliver twice the daily gains of their value (archived link).
The downside of the funds is that they would also deliver twice the daily losses -- and retail investors who piled in investments were stung massively by stock volatility.
Similar posts sharing the video have appeared on TikTok, Threads and Facebook, as well as on Instagram, YouTube and Reddit in English, but it actually shows a protest by the country's main labour group and is not linked to the stock market.
A reverse image search using keyframes and a subsequent keyword search on Google found that the yellow flag that appears at the beginning of the clip belongs to the Korean Health & Medical Workers' Union (archived link).
An article on the union's website says that its members took part in a rally held by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) in front of the Donghwa Duty Free Shop in Jung-gu, Seoul on July 15 (archived link).
South Korean media organisation Yonhap also reported that thousands of KCTU members held a rally on the day demanding that companies directly negotiate with subcontracted workers as mandated by the newly revised Trade Union Act (archived link).
The flags of the Korean Federation of Chemical and Textile, and Food Workers Unions and the KCTU can be spotted 13 and 14 seconds into the clip (archived here and here).
The man seen standing on the stage at the 20th second mark of the false clip is Park Sang-man, head of the Korean Metal Workers' Union. His name appears in the caption of the livestreamed video posted by KCTU on their YouTube account on July 15 (archived link).
There are no official reports that investors affected by the stock market tumble had taken to the streets.
AFP has previously debunked disinformation about South Korea's stock market crash.
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