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

Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

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 …