Prime Minister Han D​uck-soo has ordered the formation of a pan-government task force to devise preventive measures amid allegations that online support for China during the men’s football team during the quarterfinals of the Asian Games was manipulated. 

According to Han's office on Wednesday, the prime minister called for the establishment of a task force that includes the state broadcasting watchdog and ministries of justice, science and culture to review the claims involving the nation’s leading web portal, Daum.

Calling fake news a serious social catastrophe that threatens the foundation of democracy, the prime minister asked the task force to come up with legislative steps to prevent a recurrence of scandals similar to the 2018 online opinion-rigging.

This comes after the ratio of support for the Chinese team on the web portal during the quarterfinal match on Sunday reached as high as 91 percent, compared to just nine percent for the South Korean side.

Earlier, the Korea Communications Commission said that an analysis of around 31-point-three million clicks on Daum before and after Sunday's match found that 50 percent of them were posted from the Netherlands, and another 30 percent from Japan.

The watchdog said external forces either utilized a virtual private network(VPN) to access the portal posing as domestic netizens or applied the "macro" tactic of using automating programs to boost the number of clicks for China.

Daum operator Kakao, meanwhile, plans to seek a police investigation into the allegations after detecting the two methods of manipulation.