Photo: Ryu Hee-rim. Credit: KCSC.
Many Korean Boomers have a management style that makes heavier use of screaming and yelling than any 21st century MBA program would recommend. The most famous example is President Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열, who is known to hurl invectives “at a level that you’ve never heard in your life before,” according to a former member of his presidential staff.
Ryu Hee-rim 류희림, the head of the Korea Communications Standards Commission 방송통신심의위원회, reportedly demonstrated his management techniques during his tour of the United States from May 14 to 18. At a May 15 meeting with Google in Washington DC, Ryu reportedly banged on a desk and screamed at Vice President of Government Affairs Markham Erickson, apparently to protest the fact that Youtube took ten hours to take down a graphic video of a knife murder that occurred on May 9 in Busan.
Upon his return to Seoul, Ryu reportedly bragged to KSCS officials that he wanted to “terrorize 공포 분위기를 조성하려고” Google by raising his voice. The KCSC issued a press release announcing that Google pledged to remove “illegal or harmful content from Youtube as expeditiously as possible.” On May 21, Google Korea executives visited the KCSC to note the fact that no such promise had been made. KCSC Commissioner Kim Yu-jin 김유진 said Ryu’s antics may have jeopardized the cooperative relationship that KCSC had previously enjoyed with Google.
Ryu has been one of the Yoon administration’s most controversial appointments. Under Ryu, the KCSC has been hyperactive in levying sanctions against television stations for alleged violations of broadcasting standards - a pretext for penalizing any perceived slight against the government, such as MBC News’ use of a large blue number one in its weather graphics, which the KCSC found improperly reminiscent of the ballot number of the Democratic Party 민주당. (See previous coverage, “Yoon Administration’s Blue Blues.”)