How Korean pop fans took on white supremacists – and won

Unusual methods of online protest have sprung up recently, and it’s become harder to tell what’s real and what’s not, says Annalee Newitz

By Annalee Newitz

AN UNEXPECTED form of protest has exploded across social media. Fans of Korean pop music, K-pop, have been adding their voices to the Black Lives Matter protests by “occupying” digital spaces with a flood of adorable music videos. Already, they have disrupted police surveillance, US president Donald Trump’s re-election bid and a meeting of white supremacists on Twitter.

It all started when the large and enthusiastic community of K-pop fans in the US heard that police in Dallas, Texas, were asking concerned citizens to send in videos of “illegal activity from the protests”. Sick of police targeting peaceful …