North Korea using Twitter and YouTube

The New York Times carried an interesting article today on how North Korea is using Twitter and YouTube to bolster its propaganda efforts.  During the last month, a series of video clips have been posted to YouTube, brimming with vitriol and satire against leaders in South Korea or in the U.S.  During the past week, North Korea also began operating a Twitter account under the name uriminzok or "our nation."

A spokesman for the National Unification Ministry in Seoul said “It is clear that these accounts carry the same propaganda as the North’s official news media, but we have not been able to find out who operates them."
The two Koreas agreed to stop their psychological war after their first summit meeting in 2000, but the situation has changed following the sinking of a South Korean warship in the West Sea earlier this year.

Mobile Communication Reportedly Grows in North Korea

The Korea Times reported the other day that cell phones are becoming more popular in North Korea, and the article included some recent data.  The number of North Koreans with a state-approved cell phone reached nearly 185,000 as of the end of June, operator Orascom Telecom said Thursday, as more citizens have mobile access after a recent government expansion of services. Egypt’s Orascom, which operates the mobile operator Koryolink in partnership with the North Korean regime, said in a first-half report that services have expanded to several cities other than Pyongyang and that 184,531 subscribers had signed up as of June 30.

Although 60 percent of North Korea's citizens now technically have access to mobile communication, the network reportedly excludes cities near the border with South Korea because authorities fear the proximity could allow cross-border communication.  According to Orascom, foreigners, middle class people and young people are all taking advantage of the service.  However, according to Radio Free Asia, North Koreans have to pay a steep price to go mobile.  Customers must pay the equivalent of $250 for a phone, in addition to high-priced pre-paid minutes.

Some Context for the Police Raid on Google Korea Offices

Press reports provide additional context surround the policy raid on Google Korea's offices, as noted in my previous post.  As reported in The Korea Times, the raid here was unexpected, as the company had been talking closely with the Korea Communications Commission on how to handle the data it had collected.  Talks with the KCC were reportedly focused more on retrieving the data than on destroying it and the police raid came as a surprise.  Korea is one of about a dozen countries, including the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Britain and Australia, that are investigating whether Google broke their privacy laws in pushing out he localized versions of street view.