Consequences

going on there? Like you ever been in a room of crazy people, Like there's just the energy of it, like that weird electricity of people who are volatile and you don't know, like if they're going to break things or hit you or you're going to get paunched. It felt like that in there, Like these people were so angry from vice and I heart I'm Dexter Thomas and this is authentic. Episode five Consequences. In just three months, the tai Jano forum had exploded to more than a

hundred thousand members. Users were posting daily, sometimes hourly, and the crusade had moved offline. Members were finding anyone even remotely connected to Tableau and harassing them, trying to find information that might prove the Tableau was lying. Tableau's family and friends were being docked, and Tableau himself was under intense scrutiny, not just from the forum members, but from the public. A lot of people, even some of the

same people who probably enjoyed seeing Tableau on TV. We're starting to buy into the theory the Tableau was lying about his past. On August two, what becomes Tajanio's Day facto leader by this point, wrote this post saying Tableau and his family now cannot run away and they are broken down. Now we need to strike and smash on the back of their heads with a bird stick. Tableau says that his label offered to introduce him to a lawyer, but he'd have to pay for it himself. He decided

to leave the label altogether. So now with no backing, no manager, no pr rep, Tableau was on his own, up against tens of thousands of anonymous forum members who were determined to take him down. But it wasn't just the Internet. You couldn't even turn on the evening news without seeing his name flash across the screen, and people were starting to wonder if Tijano was right. It was starting to look like an all out war. But it's hard to call what Tableau was doing fighting. It was

more like complying. When Tajo demanded his school documents, he released them. When a major news channel said they were going to do an investigative documentary and they wanted to interview him, he agreed. When the documentary aired in October, people watched him cry and try to explain that he really did go to Stanford. They also watched Tajeno members explain what it was like investigating Tableau. It's like a game. It's addictive, it's fun, like being a detective in a

mystery novel. Some members started calling themselves online players, like this whole thing was a video game and the objective was to catch Tableau. The media had given Tableau a forum to defend himself, but that just added fuel to the fire. After that documentary aired, Tajanio membership doubled to almost two hundred thousand. Later that same October, the Prosecutor General in Korea pushed for the national police to finally get answers. But the thing is, the police had already

been aware of this. Tajen you know members have been spamming government websites since August, pushing for law enforcement to get involved. This, combined with the growing pressure from the public at large, finally got the police to start asking questions. So Tableau went and got himself that lawyer because it was clear that this was about to get very serious.

It wasn't about his fame or his music anymore. Tableau was now being investigated by the National police for forgery of a private document, and Korean law's interpretation of forgery is important here because it's not just about, say, the financial harm you do to someone if you forge his signature on a check. Korean law is extremely concerned about the public's ability to trust private documents like contracts or

bank statements or diplomas. So even if Tableau hadn't used his credentials for a job application or anything, the act of flaunting a fake diploma around on national television in the Korean government size is causing harm to society's trust that is punishable by law. If Tableau was found guilty, that could land him in prison for up to seven and a half years. This is not this is not see killer, This is just a cyber deformation. This is so in He was an officer in the cyber crime

unit in South Korea's National police force. He says the decision to investigate Tableau was unprecedented in Korea. There had been times when the national police got involved in forgery cases, but this time the police were intervening in a private citizen's life at the behest of an online mob. But I got a call from Brugal House at the time,

so everybody watching these cases. Officers got a call from the Blue House, which is the official residence of the President of South Korea, kind of like the White House in the United States. They let him know that this thing needed to be done by the book, no favoritism and no delays. I mean, is there any pay just

to ask me to investigate correctly and finish quickly. I mean, just to put it into perspective, picture the White House telling the FBI to investigate whether Kanye West really went to Chicago University because a bunch of people I read it said he didn't, and then personally calling the lead investigator to say, hey, you better do this right. It wouldn't happen, not just because he's a private citizen. But well, like I said in the last episode, who cares if

a rapper lied about their diploma? Well, in Korea, a lot of people cared and like I mentioned, lying about your diploma is a crime there. And now it was officers suze job to get the answers that the whole country was waiting for. Why do you think you were chosen for the case? Our producer Stephanie talked to officers, so my my bost think I'm the smartest because at the time I'm the only one who has a cybersecurity degrete and certification. Officers first got into computers in the nineties.

At first, it was mostly a hobby. He did get himself a gig making websites for K pop fan magazines, but that wasn't satisfying to him. What he really liked was cybersecurity, so we started studying that and in the mid two thousands, when Korea's National Police Force announced they were looking for cybersecurity experts, he applied and got the job.

By the time the agency picked up Tableau's case in twenty he'd been there for a couple of years and he had the most experience in the entire cyber crime unit, so it was only natural that the case would go to him. On an early September morning, Tableau arrived for his scheduled interrogation at the National Police Agency headquarters in Seoul. Officers subb spent weeks doing research. He'd collected every document he could get his hands on, and he knew he'd

be able to catch Tableau in any lie. He also knew that Taijuanyo and the press would be watching, so he had Tableau come on a Sunday when the front office was mostly empty and the press was less likely to be snooping around, And even then they had him come in the rear entrance just in case. Officers saw and a couple other investor gators walk Tableau and his lawyer into a small office. They all sat down, Tableau on one side, Officers on the other. They got right

into it, no small talk. Officers started off with the first line of interrogation pick Korean, English, Chinese, and he's one of the biggest parts of Tagos conspiracy hinge on how smart Tableau is or isn't. This meant the officers would have to test his intelligence, and he figured the easiest way to do this would be to compare Tableau's actual abilities to the things he'd done on TV. And officers had a particular baseline in mind all right, now,

this is one of the funniest shows. In two thousand seven, Tableau went on a variety show where the hosts had him play a game It's It's a it's a Korean food with Scott. He was pretty simple. The hosts would write down some phrases in Korean and then they'd have Tableoo described that phrase in all the different languages that he said he knew. He does English a lot of stuff in it, and French in l a moon or more, and Chinese, and on the panel their native English, French

and Chinese speakers to judge how well he's doing. His Chinese is okay and his French is not so hot. But everyone sort of makes a joke about it, because, after all, this is a game show. The guy who's judging Tableau is English. Is this Australian comedian and he's got this kind of dry humor and he starts critiquing Tableau.

There he gives his caveat, saying that lots of Koreans who hang out with foreigners probably have the same ability, but that all things considered, Tableau speaks pretty good English. So he's obviously joking here, and people start laughing because well, Tableau speaks perfect English. This wasn't a particularly notable appearance. People had seen Tableau speak English before, and he was

now a regular on TV. A couple of years later, though, as the scandal was in full swing, Tajanio had gone back to any recording they could find to scrutinize everything Tableau said on TV, including this show, searching for any evidence of lies. And they didn't think any of this language stuff was funny at all. A post by Truth is out there on October fift said, overall, his English skills are really not good, and it's logical to doubt whether he really was able to finish his graduate level

education and major in English lit. There was so much talk on the Tajano forums about Tableau's language skills that officers decided this might be an opportunity to catch him in a lie. The thing was, tablet was very confident about his English ability, but French and Chinese he hadn't used those in forever. So they actually had me speak miraculously. I just like like speaking in tongues. It came back to me for that moment. He looked very smart. I mean he didn't probably if his I one up, but

we know, we knew if he's very smart. They was just incredible that they had put in so much time.

It spanned every like it spanned everything from my transcript, my degree, to each member of my family, um, my mom's childhood, my dad's childhood, every place they worked at moved to every conspiracy theory involving anybody they know, my siblings, with my friends I had to verify like kids I went to school with, gave dug into like my ex girlfriends and stuff like just it was just incredible the sheer amount of things I had to talk to the

police about. The interrogation went on for hours. I think it was very deep cold to sit sit a long time in those kind of chair, and then I think his tires. So sometimes around lunchtime, officers called for a break. Everyone stood up and walked out of the room to get lunch. Tableau excused himself to go to the bathroom, so also had to go, so he followed him. It was a tiny bathroom, so it was a little awkward, but the interrogation was officially paused until this break was over.

So opposite, I wasn't gonna say anything to Tableau. He was just gonna do his thing and leave. But then Tableau looked at him. He told me in the bathroom, doesn't this and if I to a side, he has the officers. So with this end, if I commit suicide, he has kind of intention that you want to commits outside to finish the order of stuff. I said that, That's what he said, Really, who I remember that? Really? Do you remember was there in a point where you

were thinking about that. It's quite possible that there's uh certain things I may have like compartmentalized. I may have hidden it away somewhere. I don't know, but I'm genuinely shocked that that happened, or that I said that two the police. I don't remember like trying to kill myself for or like planning it. I don't remember it. I just I don't. I mean, like I truly don't remember it. Tableau and I hadn't really talked about this time period

until this point. This was the time that Tableau had told me that he was barely leaving his house. Whenever I pressed him for more details about his daily life back then, what kind of things he was thinking and doing, he'd give me this caveat that he doesn't really know that anything he's telling me is second hand. And my wife tries not to talk about this because this is a this is like pain for her as well. She did say to me that it wasn't like I was

completely broken down or anything. It just at times felt like I didn't have a soul, almost like that I was just I had been hollowed out and I was there but not really. She said that, yeah, like it was on this stiff my soul had like just disappeared, and I was just sort of like doing things like on autopilot. I gotta tell you the truth. And honestly, at times like I was confused whether or not I had dementia. Like I I literally said to myself, did

I imagine going to Stanford? Like? Did I imagine my life before all of this? You seriously thought that, yeah, because if the entire world is saying that that's what happened, like, how am I supposed to make sense of that? I gotta say here that when Tableau first told me he didn't remember this period of his life, I was a little skeptical. Maybe he didn't want to talk about it, or more specifically, maybe he just didn't want to talk

about it with me. But when I told Tableau about him asking the cops for advice about killing himself, the look on his face told me immediately that this man was not faking. His face dropped. He was shocked. One of the few things Tableau had through this entire process was the sense of who he was, his sense of self. Even as he started to lose his grip on basic things like where he lived and what he'd accomplished, he'd

never lost hold of his core. Not Tableau the rapper or Dan the Stanford graduate, but Tableau Daniel Lee, the son, the friend, the father, the person who would never ever waver in that duty. He'd convinced his family this, and maybe more importantly, he'd convinced himself. But in that room with me, he found out it wasn't true. He wasn't as brave as he told himself he was. And for a few seconds, it was like he wasn't looking at

me anymore. He was kind of looking past me, like there was a mirror on the other side of the room, and and looking at it, he was realizing how much closer to the edge he was then he'd been willing to admit to himself in the bathroom. He looks like he wanted to cry. Yeah, I charged him because I don't know it. You only have to tell me the trust. After they took a break, officers said he didn't really

notice any other sign of emotion from Tableau. When they got back to the room and started the questioning again, Tableau seemed to snap back into focus. He straight faced and just centered on getting through all the questions. In the end, the interrogation took about eight hours. Once I decided he had gotten everything he could from Tableau, everyone went home for the night. The next day started making calls. He had to take every statement Tableau made line by

line and verify if it was true or not. He also collected more documents. We have to find if this document is facal on us, so we sent this documents to other organizations. They sent the important documents to government forensics labs for verification. They were not going to let anything slip to the cracks. Once they got them back,

they analyzed everything. The entire process took about a month, then getting the finals, and then I kind of had a confidence that he graduated the stampo APTI analyzing or In October of the police were ready to announce their findings at a press conference. They said the Tableau's paperwork was all legit. The Tableau's claimed that he graduated from Stanford in three and a half years with a bachelor's and a master's degree was true. Tableau head never lied.

Tijanyo was wrong. It should have ended there, but it didn't. That's after the break In October, the Korean National Police Agency announced it after a thorough investigation, they had found no evidence that Tableau had lied about his degree. For a lot of people, this announcement was enough. If the highest law enforcement agency in the country said he was innocent, then maybe Tableau really was who he said he was.

But now tai Jano had a problem. They had pushed hard for an investigation in the Tableau and this was not the outcome they wanted. That wasn't the problem, though. The police announced they were turning their focus away from Tableau and toward the people who were making these posts about Tableau. Taijano's request for an investigation backfired in the worst possible way. Now they were the target. Why did

you decide to do that? Why did you decide to pursue the Tajo Because we have to investigate every cases we got, so I got the post cases from Tajanio side, and then so of course I have to do my duty. Tableau wanted the police to look into the people who had been harassing him in his family for months, and his words now held more weight given that he had been officially cleared of what the police now considered to

be bogus charges. His lawyer had already printed out user names and screenshots of what he considered to be the worst offenders. He handed everything over the police and was ready to sue for defamation. In Korea, defamation is a crime that's punishable by up to seven years in prison, about the same amount of time that Tableau had been facing for forgery, and the police took this justice seriously, and so this kicked off the investigation into ta Janyo.

Police had looked into online harassment cases before, but they usually didn't go anywhere. Before this, things that happened online still kind of felt like they were separate from the real world. But Toujanyo was clearly very real, and this had been a highly public case, so there was a chance that this could go differently. Within hours of the police announcing the investigation. Chajano responded on the forum not

to apologize, but to go on the offensive. On October nine, someone with the user name ce dave Lee made a new post with all sorts of new accusations against the police. It read, the police didn't follow their operating procedure rules. It seems suspicious. We urged the police to conduct the fair investigation. We were already in the middle of hiring lawyers, and we promised to actively react to the investigation. Even they told us doing the investigation, we're going to have

lost against you guys. You guys, Detectiveical not go to Jay. They asked cut the subillance coming out to Video Equity so that they can use that evidence to fight a la go against the police. Detective. So you're kind of scared because they are threatened us. It seems like not a good idea to harass the police when they're investigating you, right, like kep, you kept investigating, Yeah, Officers. Began his investigation by trying to track down some of the real names

of people posting on Tajanio. In order to do this, he needed access to the data on Neighbor, the platform Tajanio was on because to make an account on Neighbor, you used to have to provide a government ID number when you signed up, so even if you're publicly anonymous, Neighbor knew who you were. But Neighbor wasn't willing to just hand over all that personal data for every single member, so officers so narrowed it down to a smaller list of the really egregious posters and he got a warrant

for them. Were handed over those addresses and phone numbers, and officers started calling people up and pretty quickly new form threads started popping up with people nervously talking about being called into the police station. Then, just days later, tajen Your members logged into their accounts to find that the entire tajen Your forum was gone. The police had discovered that what becomes the Star of ta Janyo had used a fake government I D to sign up for

his account, and in Korea that is illegal. At this point, police wanted all the data, and Neibor agreed to give it to them. Sus says he was about to request another warrant to get the site shut down, but Neighbor did it for them. At this point, Neighbor figured that it was in their best interest to comply with the investigation, but it was never going to go that easy. A few hours later, a new form showed up. This one was called naturally ta Janyo two, and people started flooding

back in. Even some of the old posts were intact because a forum member had saved them. This was not a shutdown, this was a hiccup in the operation. Ta Janyo was back on in full force, but the celebration didn't last for long. The police were pulling in members one by one for questioning, and of course, the word got out if a four member went dark for too long, people started wondering if they've been called in and what

happened to them and who was next. In the span of days, the forms moved morphed for righteous euphoria into anger, into a slow collective freak out, and they were struggling to stay focused. How many user names do you think you went through before you started to narrow into the

people who were worst? More than it took officers months to go through all those user names, but by January two thousand eleven, he finally narrowed it down to a list of people he thought he could charge with an actual crime, and how did you decide who was going to be the worst of the people who you're going to investor? I mean the frequency, how often they post pedure and how sedos the contents for without posting, and

then if this is so to or not. At its height, Tanjanio had had around two hundred thousand members, but after the shift in public sentiment and the shutdown of the original forum, and especially the investigation, the ranks were dropping. Tajanio still had tens of thousands of members, but they were fighting what was starting to look like a losing battle. In January two tho eleven, after three months of interrogating Tago members, the police announced the results. Hollow Eleven people

were being charged with defamation. This announcement happened in January, but it would take more than a year to finalize everything in court. But before I could go to trial, two people came forward and apologized. One person even got their family involved. It was a girl and her dad showed up to my house. I was like, please, please, don't come here. Since Tableau was the person who brought the charges, he also had the power to rescind them, and I kept telling him to leave and Eventually he did.

I had the security come up and you know, tell him he can't be here. But then as he left, you know, like this this father looked like he you know, he wasn't doing well in life, you know, and this was just another huge problem on his heart. I actually ran out and he said that his daughter had been struggling with like like skin problems, and um, this like drove her crazy, and she like regrets it, but that

was the reason for her anger. It's just in that moment, like the way that person looked, like the way that person's father looked, I just you know, I'm fighting this, like I'm I'm fighting this person. I let that person off the hook. Another person also apologized to Tableau, and he agreed to remove them from the prosecution list too. The other nine people stood trial for defamation. All of them were found guilty. The ones who posted about Tableau's

family got the harshest sentences. Most of them got probabed, but three of them were sentenced to eight to ten months in prison. This was a landmark case. Korea already had laws on the books against defamation, but it was difficult to bring that to an actual conviction. In part because the justice system tended to air on the side of caution when it came to freedom of speech. But attitudes about online harassment had shifted, and Tableau's case was

extremely public. No other defamation case had gotten this kind of attention. This wasn't exactly a win for officers, So there was still some unfinished business important the guys. When the original Tajanio forum was shut down, what becomes had more or less disappeared, but officers so was still looking for him. I still remember he used to living in the Chicago. I found his name, and I found his selfhone number, and I quart he from Korea And what

did he say? That's next time? Unauthentic. Authentic is a production of Vice Audio and I Heeart podcast Network, produced and reported by Stephanie Karayuki, Minjiko Hate Osbourne and myself with Janet Lee, Stephanie Brown, and Sam Egan. Sound design and original music composition by Kyle Murdoch, with additional support from Natasha Jacobs. Our supervising producer is Janet Lee, editing from Lacy Roberts, fact checking by Minji Ku and Nikole Pasuka.

Our Executive producer and VP Advice Audio is Kate Osbourne from I Heeart Podcast Network, executive producers Nicky e. Tor and Lindsay Hoffman. Thinks also to NBC for the documentary Tablet Goes to Stanford and the show Hotel I'm Dexter Thomas. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you dig it, give us a rating and a review.