MBC is facing intense domestic and international backlash for its use of inappropriate pictures to identify the countries joining in the 2020 Summer Olympics being held in Tokyo, Japan.

The opening ceremonies have started yesterday, with the big three Korean networks -- KBS, MBC, and SBS -- devoting two hours for the exclusive and special live coverage of the event, aired throughout the country.

MBC had used photos for countries so that Korean audiences can easily identify which country is which. This was seen as a good idea, until they decided to use the photo of Chernobyl to identify the Ukrainian national team.

They also used some inappropriate photos to identify other countries, such as using a photo of the ongoing protests in Haiti and the bitcoin for El Salvador.

El Salvador (above) was seen here associated with Bitcoin.

Haiti was identified with the photo from the ongoing protests due to the assassination of their Prime Minister happening recently.

They also used a photo of the Arctic salmon to identify Norway, along with a map of the Northern European country. Still, this was considered disrespectful and promoted unnecessary stereotypes.

Norway was associated with the Arctic salmon upon panning the camera to the Norwegian Olympics official standing in the audience.

They also used unnecessary information to smaller countries, with the objective to look down on them for their poor standings in the world stage. For instance, they used the low GDP of Marshall Islands, a country in the Oceania, to identify the country when they appeared on screen. Netizens felt that this was low of the Korean broadcasting station, because the country's GDP and their COVID vaccination rates have nothing to do with the Summer Olympics.

They also mentioned that Marshall Islands was used to test atomic bombs by the US, along with their national GDP and their country's COVID vaccination rates.

What infuriated the netizens more is that they apologized by using subtitles, and the announcers offering a curt apology for the inappropriate media.

The white block of subtitles offer an apology to the countries such as Ukraine and Haiti, along with their apologies to the people in those countries.

The netizens were baffled to see things such as the country's GDP and their COVID vaccination rates to be used to identify the countries to the Korean audience, stressing how these can cause discord among countries when the Olympics is supposed to be a celebration of peace and sportsmanship among the competing nations.

MBC has yet to respond to this issue.

Photos courtesy of Raphael Rashid and Koreaboo.