President Lee: Direct communication with people in back alleys and on social media is a duty that must not be abandoned

[Financial News] President Lee Jae Myung emphasized on the 29th, “Direct communication with people in back alleys or on social media is one of the important duties that a public servant representing the people, entrusted by all the people with the responsibility and authority to run the country, must not give up.”
President Lee said this in a post titled “There Are People in the Back Alleys, Too” on X (formerly Twitter) that day.
This comes amid criticism, particularly from progressives, over President Lee’s sharing on the 28th of a post from FM Korea (Femco), a community mainly used by men in their 20s and 30s, which suggested the possibility of reconsidering preferential policies for multicultural families. The post is seen as an indirect expression of his position on direct communication with the public through social media.
President Lee said, “I can meet influential people who are highly educated and wealthy over lunch or dinner in a formal setting, and I can also deliberately seek out dark, narrow back alleys to meet ordinary people struggling with daily life. I can learn about reality through official reports and people who represent the public, or communicate with the world through anonymous communities and electronic messages that keep arriving day and night.”
He added, “I can report to the people indirectly through press conferences, but I can also report to them directly through social media.”
President Lee explained, “There is no need to assume that the former is good and should be encouraged while the latter is bad and should be avoided. Whether influential figures or powerless ordinary citizens, they are all sovereigns of the Republic of Korea whom I must serve and honor. That is because there are people everywhere—in shabby back alleys as well as in anonymous communities and on social media.”
Meanwhile, Lim Ho-geun, the Blue House secretary for population policy, said on the day, regarding the system for local governments to operate postpartum care centers that President Lee had mentioned on social media, “We will listen to the diverse views of local governments, which are responsible for establishing and operating public postpartum care centers, and voices from the field, and consider revising the Enforcement Decree of the Mother and Child Health Act so that the benefits of the priority-use system for postpartum care centers go first to mothers who need them most.”
[email protected] Choi Jong-geun Reporter