Starbucks furor hijacks election finale with fight over hate speech

Furor over a recent Starbucks marketing campaign has become an unlikely proxy for the country’s political divide, with a poll released Monday suggesting it is now shaping shifts in support for the rival parties mere days before South Korea holds its local elections.

The backlash over promotions criticized as trivializing the May 18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising has widened into a larger fight over how far the state should go about reining in hateful expression — including whether far-right online ...