[Editorial] Is the Audit Hearing a YouTube Shorts Set?

Civil servants were preparing materials in the corridors of the National Assembly’s standing committees on the 6th, when the parliamentary audit got underway in earnest. Photo by Yoon Dongju.

"Are you doing this just to make YouTube videos?" The remark made by Seo Young-kyo, chair of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, at the committee's parliamentary audit on October 6 captured the nature of this year's audits, dubbed "audits for Shorts." Now past the halfway point, the audits have become an occasion for the ruling and opposition parties to compete in shouting and hurling insults, then edit the scenes into Shorts and upload them, rather than calmly scrutinizing problems in government policy and seeking solutions. This behavior, driven by a desire to appeal to hard-line supporters who cheer provocative remarks and scenes of confrontation, is growing increasingly extreme. Comments too shameful to repeat, such as "You have never been a person," "When it's time to cut off Lee Jae-myung," "Aren't you the deputy leader of the Tiger gang?" and "female gangster," have been heard in audit hearings.

The Segye Times reported on October 19 that "852 related Shorts were uploaded to YouTube during the first week of this year's parliamentary audits, 6.2 times the number during the same period last year." The figure comes from an analysis using the YouTube Data API, Google's official program for accessing YouTube data. The number of channels that uploaded videos also rose to 501, nearly six times the figure a year earlier, the analysis found. The National Assembly's lopsided distribution of seats may have helped foster this environment. Of course, as the channels delivering the news have changed, members cannot be faulted for using Shorts to publicize their parliamentary activities. In some respects, doing so is necessary.

The problem is what the videos contain. Shorts that demean and demonize political opponents instead of scrutinizing policy may rally supporters and draw applause in the short term, but in the long run they could deepen public distrust of politics. They may raise an individual's profile, but sooner or later they will come back to haunt them. Nor can this be dismissed as a problem involving individual lawmakers alone. The National Assembly, which should discipline lawmakers for their abusive remarks, has not even formed an Ethics Special Committee. Provocative Shorts are rewarded with views, while lawmakers face no institutional accountability, entrenching a system in which the ruling and opposition parties benefit from one another.

Ultimately, the public pays the price. No one wants this kind of politics. The more disillusioned people turn away from politics, viewing it as a "league of their own," the less interested they become in policy, and the weaker scrutiny becomes. The ruling and opposition parties must put an end to Shorts-driven audits and focus on policy questions. They should establish institutional safeguards to bar lawmakers who routinely make abusive remarks from being nominated, and form an Ethics Special Committee with outside members to provide strong oversight. Surely we must not hear any more that politics is the only thing moving backward.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.