AP News66%
Starbucks Korea to close stores early for mandatory history training after marketing row 21%
By KIM TONG-HYUNG29%
6/15/2026, 2:44:39 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 13 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Availability Heuristic, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 45% saturation with 167 hits. Analysis detected 564 faulty-reasoning hits from 371 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 33.4% and a BS Rank of 21% (18,220 of 22,840 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 79.80% of the article peer group.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Starbucks’ South Korean operation said Monday it will close all of its stores nationwide early on June 22 for mandatory history and social sensitivity training as it reels from backlash following a marketing campaign that was widely perceived as mocking victims of a brutal military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1980.
Shinsegae Group, which owns a 67.5% stake in Starbucks Korea, said group executives and employees at Starbucks Korea’s headquarters will attend training led by history and sociology professors on Wednesday.
All Starbucks stores nationwide will close at 3 p.m. next Monday so employees can watch a recording of the session, Shinsegae said in a statement.
The coffee chain triggered an uproar when it attempted to promote a series of stainless-steel tumblers it called “SS Tank” by declaring May 18 to be “Tank Day.”
The date marks the anniversary of the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southern city of Gwangju.
It was violently suppressed by Seoul’s military government at the time, which deployed troops, tanks and helicopters, leaving hundreds dead or injured.
The campaign further fueled outrage by using the slogan “Thwack it on the table!”
which many read as a reference to a notorious 1987 police statement that attempted to cover up the torture death of student activist Park Jong-chol.
Authorities had falsely said Park died after investigators “hit the desk with a thwack.”
Shinsegae said the decision to close all Starbucks stores early for the first time since the chain’s 1999 launch in South Korea and require companywide training shows “how seriously it views the marketing controversy and its determination to prevent a recurrence.”
The crackdown in Gwangju came months after General Chun Doo-hwan seized power in a coup in late 1979.
Government records show about 200 people died in Gwangju, but activists say the true death toll was much higher.
Chun’s government also imprisoned tens of thousands, saying it was rooting out social evils.
Public anger over Chun’s dictatorship led to massive nationwide protests in 1987, forcing him to accept a constitutional revision introducing direct presidential elections, which is widely seen as the start of South Korea’s transition to democracy.
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