The claim appeared after a map marking Dokdo as Japanese area appeared in an online civil defence course administered by South Korea’s interior ministry, triggering debate online (archived link).
The ministry in reaction erased the map and discussed it had actually been wrongly included by an external business entrusted with developing the courses.
The claim was shared in comparable Facebook posts consisting of here and here.
Stock image
A reverse image search on Google discovered the map published on the iStockphoto site on March 14, 2016 (archived link).
Below is a screenshot contrast in between the image shown the incorrect claim on Facebook (left) and the initial image published on iStockphoto (right):
The image was published by an iStockphoto account called Bobtokyoharris, which routinely posts pictures of maps and worlds (archived link).
On The Other Hand, South Korea’s defence ministry verified that main maps constantly utilized the East Sea label.
“We cannot figure out the source of this map in concern, however the Republic of Korea’s defence ministry utilizes maps with the East Sea label,” a ministry spokesperson informed AFP on May 16.
“It does not make good sense that this might be a defence ministry file when we are continuously making efforts to correct wrongful labels in worldwide media that do not utilize the ‘East Sea’ name through foreign ministry channels and main grievances,” he stated.
Below is the map shared in incorrect Facebook posts (left) and a main map released in the defence ministry’s 2022 white paper, with Dokdo highlighted in yellow by AFP (right) (archived link):
Moreover, the map shared in social networks posts utilizes the old McCune-Reischauer romanisation system for the Korean language (archived link).
Seoul dropped the system in 2000 in favour of a revised system that it stated represented regional pronunciation more precisely (archived link).