Comprehensive“Chosun Ilbo”, “South Korea daily”, “South Korea Times” and other South Korean media reported on the 18th, a propaganda video produced by South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Korea) to mark the 80th anniversary of Hanukkah and to review the country’s 120-year history of railways was removed after it was criticised as “Pro-japanese” for showing what appeared to be images of Tokyo Station.
On August 15th the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Korea) posted a propaganda video on its official YouTube channel, running for a minute and 56 seconds, entitled “120 years of railways, side by side with the restoration of the nation”. Around 29 seconds into the video, the caption read “Korean railways full of the spirit of 80 years of recovery, heading to the future”, but the background was found to be highly similar to that of Tokyo Station.
Some netizens also said that the video screen in the upper right-hand corner of the vehicle on the left side of the traffic and other details further support this is a Japanese railway image. The posts quickly spread on social platform X, with the number of page views exceeding 200,000 in a short period of time.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Korea) deleted the video on the 17th, “The images were generated by artificial intelligence (AI) ,” he explained. “The producers were not railway experts and failed to find any problems during the final review. In the future, more care will be taken to use AI-generated visual effects.”.
It is worth noting that this is not the first time South Korean railway-related institutions because of“Japanese elements” into the public opinion storm. In 2022, on the 77th anniversary of Hanukkah, the Korail was forced to delete posts on social media that contained Shinkansen and pictures of Mount Fuji, also causing public discomfort, the parties concerned also publicly apologized.