00:00South Korean police raided Starbucks headquarters over a coffee cup promotion.
00:04But prosecutors turned down that same warrant a couple of months ago.
00:08Here's what's happening.
00:09May 18th, 1980.
00:11South Korea's military dictatorship sent tanks to Gwangju to crush a pro-democracy uprising,
00:17killing hundreds of students and civilians.
00:19Seven years later, student activist Park Jong-chul died under torture.
00:23The regime's official explanation was that he collapsed after an officer slammed a fist on the desk.
00:29The Korean word for that sound, talk, became synonymous with both the incident and the regime's lies.
00:34So fast forward to May 18th, 2026.
00:38Starbucks Korea launches a promotion for a large coffee tumbler called The Tank.
00:42The promotion? Tank Day.
00:44The campaign slogan? Thwack it on the table.
00:47Or in Korean, talk.
00:49Two separate references to two historical atrocities in a single ad campaign on the anniversary of one of them.
00:56The CEO of Starbucks Korea was fired and Shinsegae Group chairman Chung Young Jin,
01:00whose subsidiary holds a 67.5% stake in Starbucks Korea, has apologized twice on camera.
01:07On August 5th, investigators from Seoul's Metropolitan Police searched Starbucks Korea's headquarters in Gangnam
01:12with a warrant listing suspected insult, among other charges.
01:17Korean media reported investigators were also sent to the homes of company executives.
01:22In South Korea, insult and defamation are crimes under the Criminal Act, carrying up to five years in prison.
01:29A separate 2021 law makes distorting the Gwangju uprising its own offense.
01:34So the ad that started as a marketing mistake is now a criminal search in a country where insulting the
01:39dead can carry prison time.
01:41But what do you think?
01:43Should a company be able to go to jail over an ad?
01:45Drop your take in the comments.
Comments