North Korea Looking For Friends On Facebook

crimeandpunishment writes "North Korea has apparently decided this social networking thing is worth doing. Just days after launching Twitter and YouTube accounts, it appears to have added Facebook to the list. It probably won't get too many friends in South Korea, which has already blocked access to the North Korean Twitter account for containing 'illegal information' under its security laws...and says the Facebook page could suffer the same fate."

The Accounts In Question

[pgn674]

uriminzokkiri (uriminzok) on Twitter [twitter.com]

YouTube - uriminzokkiri's Channel [youtube.com]

Facebook | Uriminzokkiri [facebook.com]

Looks like the original Facebook "people" account they made was removed (probably by North Korea when they realized it didn't make sense to have a "people" account), and replaced with a "page" thing. I noticed the original account's username was uriminzokkiri, and the new one is uriminzokkiriLike, so maybe North Korea changed accounts primarily because they want the Like button? Lots of guessing here.

Re:Hi!

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent Anonymous Coward was making a reference to a popular meme which revolved around the 2chan and 4chan communities where angry [South] Koreans were waging electronic warfare (e.g. DDOS attacks, spamming, etc.) because of anti-korean jokes that were popular at the time.

Unfortunately, this had the opposite of the intended effect and caused a more explosive anti-korean reaction - including the use of hundreds of different custom created images where everyone wanted it to be known that "North Korea is Best Korea". It reached its peak during the anti Bieber explosion of 4chan antics where the board members successfully destroyed the Bieber world-tour campaign's Internet contest to see where he would [definitely] go on his world tour (as well as many other humiliatingly hilarious things also).

So your horrible attempt at humor was in actuality, massive fail. Plus that originally became popular from Full Metal Jacket.. a movie that took place in Vietnam.. not Korea.

Re:Rather stupid...

[jonfr]

No. Only the military can get to the internet, and people connected to the leader of North-Korea. Everyone else can use the North-Korea intranet that they have if that person is lucky.

The rest has nothing but media owned by the government, that is spewing out propaganda about South-Korea, U.S and others.

North-Korea does not have official connection with the internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_North_Korea [wikipedia.org]

Re:no points

[Anonymous Coward]

I currently reside in South Korea, and this is nothing new. There are plenty of sites that are blocked (and not just pertaining to North Korea).

I did notice that it seems the censorship is quite specific and not thorough.

I've ran across a few porno sites that are blocked, but more which are not. I've noticed a 'adult bb/forum' that gets banned every month, and every month the website switches to a new domain/server (only to get banned the next month). The said site also has a twitter account which announces the website changes, but access to that account is banned.

I've noticed plenty of blocked Chinese websites. One in particular I recall is one about visiting/touring the DPRK (from China->DPRK).

I also noticed their attempts to block adservers. A lot of unsavory sites I visit (porn, warez, etc.) have blocked ads brought to me by KCSC.

Re:"Trading" With North Korea - Against US Law?

[belmolis]

Simply providing a place for communication appears not to fall under the US trade restrictions. There are Iranians living in Iran with FB accounts.

Re:Rather stupid...

[e4g4]

I highly recommend The Vice Guide to North Korea [www.vbs.tv] for some insight into what their citizens can and can't do.

Re:Hi!

[Securityemo]

Defending yourself against senseless memetic attacks (or just trolling) online generally is very hard. The best tactic I've found is a form of social judo, where you misdirect the attackers attention/distort the meme to something that isn't relevant to you, or makes them identify with you and anulling the dehumanizing effect of the internet - either be as unreal or real as possible. The most direct example would be a pre-prepared sockpuppet personality/mask with false weaknesses, but that obviously isn't applicable here. If you where a group of nationalists trying to stem a meme/raid like that, you'd basically either need to make the flow point at something(s) about your national character that isn't important, or make the attackers (honestly) identify and sympathise with aspects of your culture. Since we are talking about young males who like to think they are clever here, acts of war and political guile spiced up with true accounts of misery would probably do; if you can't hide your weaknesses you must bluntly admit to them. Think "getting respect from boys with daddy issues". "Attacking in force" is only doable if you can do something (harsh) to them IRL that would make them snap out of it .
All such machinations must be done indirectly, like it was all a big joke that you just made funnier or more clever, or it's a "forced meme." Also, truly horrible memes and information (like jokes about children and napalm) are repeated not because it's funny but because it's horrible, as a way to draw attention to them; the laughter is that of hysteria. This, and the fact that the hysteria often is completely juvenile and immature is probably the sole source for people mistaking behaviour like this for some sort of utter evil, when in reality it's just schoolyard shit-talking sped up 10x. Now, people like this are often mixed up with people who actually have a coherent point about the issues - but they are easily recognized, not being, as you so well describe it, senseless.