North Korea Looking For Friends On Facebook 183
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."
Rather stupid... (Score:2)
Re:Rather stupid... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Rather stupid... (Score:5, Funny)
no different than most other face book users ..
It has a completely meaning when North Korea 'cancels' the account of one of its citizen.
Re:Rather stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
Their citizens can get on the Internets?
Re:Rather stupid... (Score:5, Informative)
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: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway this whole thing looks so deliciously similar to a network in movie Avalon [imdb.com]. Actually it's like that movie is reenacted in real life in North Korea. Oppressive communist government? Check. Network somewhat accessible to the general public, from whimsically unreliable terminals. Che
Re:Rather stupid... (Score:4, Informative)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
It's a whole 'nother world and these guys were crazy enough to go all the way in. What makes them even crazier is that they're American.
Re: (Score:2)
Reminded me of the description of travel some (American) friends of mine told after visiting the Soviet Union during the Cold War (they were architecture students). Everything they did was escorted, and the empty banquet halls was dead on, but supposedly the food was better. Rooms were always bugged, and apparently some of the bugs were very obvious.
Re: (Score:2)
In North Korea, the people are privileged if they have electricity, much less internet. Take a look at satellite photos of Korea at night - South Korea has huge swaths of white. North Korea is black.
North Korea is a communist dictatorship - by definition the state gives you everything you need and thus there is no reason to buy anything. Mostly that means Kim Jong Il uses tax money to build elaborate palaces and the only reason he doesn't have a Ceauescu-like revolution is because of his massive army and r
Re: (Score:2)
South Korea is so wealthy because the western corporations are resources money into it, as a way to encroach on Asia. North Korea is so militarized because China is dumping resources into it, as a way to create a buffer zone between the western corporations and their citizens.
Both civilizations are the way they are because the rest of the world demanded that they be that way.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Rather stupid... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not like they're uploading critical information (i.e. classified materials) to facebook. The worst the US could do is to deface the page. Of course if they were going to do that then they could have already set up a fake north Korean page and filled it with lies. Of course, there's no point in doing either of these things because there's nothing to be gained. It's not like the US needs to change the public view of North Korea.
North Korea... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:North Korea... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And others would die in a sea of flaming spam.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hi! (Score:5, Informative)
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:Hi! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Zynga (Score:5, Funny)
Kim Jong-Il heard about Farmville and thought that sounded fun-.
Re: (Score:2)
Kim Jong-Il heard about Farmville and thought that sounded fun-.
Really? I heard he was going to use it to better train his farmers.
Re:Zynga (Score:4, Interesting)
Kim Jong-Il heard about Farmville and thought that sounded fun-.
Really? I heard he was going to use it to better train his farmers.
You can virtually feed a nation with a Farmville farm. Another high point, the traffic girls [google.com] have a place to vent too.
Re:Zynga (Score:4, Insightful)
Kim Jong-Il heard about Farmville and thought that sounded fun
Mr Kim, or as he prefers to be called "the dear leader", doesn't need Facebook to play games with farming or people's lives. He has control over millions of real people, all of whom can be forced to participate in whatever macabre social experiment he chooses to conduct, except that here in the real world there are no saves, no continues and you get only 1 life. The continued existence of the North Korean Worker's Party and the monstrous state that it has produced is one of the greatest ongoing travesties of social justice in our time. It is hard to imagine any other place on earth where the ordinary citizen is worse off than in North Korea. At least in Somalia and Sudan the people have some inkling of what the outside world is like and whether or not they are being lied to. The people of North Korea, on the other hand, have been so thoroughly brainwashed and controlled that the outside world essentially does not exist for them or at least not in any way that is meaningful. Even Cuba is practically a paradise by way of comparison to North Korea. Mr Kim and his father are disgraces to the entire human race, in the same league as Hitler and Stalin before them, and history will forever damn their names, just as surely as Hitler and Stalin are damned, when Korea is eventually re-united under a freely elected and democratic government of by and for the people of Korea. In the meantime the rest of the free world should do whatever it can to hasten that day.
Re:Zynga (Score:4, Insightful)
Reunification will cause an immediate economic collapse like the world has seldom seen, followed by at least one generation of chaos as the brainwashed masses slowly die off from old age.
Of course, it needs to be done - but it is going to *suck*.
Re:Zynga (Score:4, Insightful)
[North Korean] people will never, ever be able to live productive lives in a free society - they simply don't know how.
Most East Germans managed to adapt pretty well after the reunification, although North Korea is probably a bit worse than the GDR was. I don't think that Koreans are THAT much different from Germans. But yeah, it isn't going to be easy.
Re:Zynga (Score:5, Interesting)
As another poster pointed out, "a bit worse" is an understatement. East Germany was much better off relative to West than North Korea is to South. Here's a post I made about this on another forum:
In the long run, sure. But even if DPRK were to collapse tomorrow, it's just not feasible for the two countries to fully reunite within several decades, at least. The comparison to West/East germany was already made, but maybe some numbers will make the scale of the problem sink in better. Raising the taxes in the south by a few percent isn't going to do it.
Population
East Germany: 16m
West Germany: 63m
3.9x higher population
GDP per capita (couldn't find the raw numbers)
West Germany has ~2.5x GDP
Population
North 24m
South 48m
2x higher population
GDP per capita
North 555
South 19,300
South is 35x higher. Thirty five times!
From a pure humanistic point of view it would probably be better if the united Koreas were together but half as rich as the South used to be than for both to continue as-is, but I don't see that happening. There were twice as many West Germans for every East German as there are South Koreans to North Koreans, and the productivity and education was also much closer. The huge disparity in Koreas means that southerners could just adopt a northerner with their disposable income, but actually bringing them up to a comparable level would be a mind-boggling task.
To be honest, I don't know what could be the other option. If it collapsed on its own without our involvement, the best bet would probably to leave them be and hope somebody more moderate gets into power and then slowly open up the trade and travel until the country reaches parity. If, on the other hand, there was an armed conflict and we (as in, everybody who isn't DPRK) rolled in to Pyongyang, my guess would be to install a puppet government and have them implement reforms while we pump in aid (insert your favorite development path), again, until there isn't such a huge difference. The population question would probably be the most difficult -- do we restrict travel, only let people into the north, allow working or student visas?
Re: (Score:2)
I mostly took issue with "[North Korean] people will never, ever be able to live productive lives in a free society - they simply don't know how." as it comes off as quite racist. I'm sure that most North Korean individuals would be able to live a productive life in a free society IF given the chance.
Re: (Score:2)
I honestly think you could be wrong here. It's not an issue of race AT ALL - it's an issue of ingrained culture. We're seeing it in Iraq, in particular, as well as in Russia. Adaptation to freedom DOESN'T happen "overnight." There's cultural issues to work through, issues that are ingrained into people for GENERATIONS. I'm not saying it can't - or shouldn't - be tried, just that it's not going to be as easy as you're making out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why does it need to be done? The important thing is bringing North Korea into the modern world. To make the North Koreans productive again. Reunification is not necessary for that. Just economic reform. Of course the North Koreans have to want it and maybe they don't.
Re: (Score:2)
No, I think it's just because he's so wonewy. So vewy wonewy.
North Korean dancing video (Score:2)
So North Korea is publishing videos of their soldiers dancing [youtube.com] on YouTube now. Seems to me like they are trying to compete with the Filipino prisoners who performed Thriller [youtube.com].
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
no points (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as I disagree with just about everything NK stands for, South Korea isn't winning an points in my book by blocking access.
note: before any westerners point out that blocking access will only spike curiosity and make those in SK more interested it the account, I would like to point out that Korean culture values authority far more than ours, and from my own experience living there, the children in south Korea had little to no interest in the North.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
North Korea will eventually collapse. It's too big to keep itself afloat like Cuba has managed to do. They also don't have nearly as many affluent friends as Cuba does. The SK push toward unification is an effort to keep tensions low in the face of the mass brainwashing the NK regime uses on its people. It will inevitably fall upon the South Koreans to do most of the heavy lifting in taking care of the people when the collapse happens, which is why they are taking steps now to plan for that eventuality.
Re: (Score:2)
True. North Koreans don't get much real news from the outside, but a fair number have at least been to China, or have contact with people who have been to China. Quite a few North Korean school teachers, for example, were trained in China. Of course they don't dare contradict the orthodox view in class, but little things get out to friends and neighbors. Furthermore, some North Koreans get information about the outside world as part of their jobs. Such people are chosen from those considered politically re
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see how it could happen other than if South Korea invades North Korea or the North Korean government collapses. Is that what South Korea is really talking about when saying they want to "unite"?
Yes.
The South will wait patiently until the current regime dies. At that point there is indeed MUCH potential for an absorption of the North by the South. You have to understand that *MOST* North Koreans *WANT* to move to the South, become a part of the outside world.
Re: (Score:2)
Korean psychology is interesting.
Much as North and South differ, they hate each other less than they dislike foreigners, and are extremely proud for no logical reason except a reaction to being Japan's historic doormat.
What most South Koreans who preach appeasement really want is surrender. There are a considerable number who pretty much grovel before the North, which North Korean leadership exploits brilliantly.
The North Koreans aren't crazy by a longshot, but convincing others that they are nuts pays off.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This is where slashdot moderation fails. What we need is a -1 ill-informed. The only thing you got right is that the North Korean leaders aren't crazy.
Re:no points (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately in this case, there's been very, very little mixing of the nations people in the last 50 or so years, whereas with the Germanies there was at least minimal mixing over a nearly 30 year period of time that the Berlin Wall stood. Most likely the best we could hope for in the near term would be fore Kim Jong Il and his cronies to be ousted or otherwise leave power and for a period of time where there was at least some modest mixing of the people. As it stands now there's more in common, by far, between the Americans and Canadians, or the various groups withing China and India than there is between the Koreas.
Re:no points (Score:5, Interesting)
Points taken, but the two Koreans are also much more alike than the Germans or Iraqis in other regards. Ever since the Silla dynasty unified Korea in 676, the Korean peninsula (or at least a big portion of it) was under a common ruler until 1945. There are no isolated minority culture, no minority languages, no nothing. It's just a big swath of Koreans from the Yalu River to the island of Jeju.
Contrast that with the Germans, who managed to found a unified nation only in the 19th century.
50 years of brutal oppression cannot take everything away. We still speak the same language, eat the same food, and observe the same holidays (at least some of them). The notion of shared cultural heritage runs strong in Korea, along with the feeling that it's our "destiny" to be unified again. You may say it's not sensible (there are certainly many people who feel that way), but you cannot deny that the feeling is there.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
NK - SK
Reunification -Reunification
Get Nuclear Weapons - Get Nuclear Weapons
Invade Japan -Invade Japan
Dear Leader - Starcraft
When you look at it the right way, it's clear you have a point.
Re: (Score:2)
Apples and oranges, wrt to Germany and Korea. In Korea, two disparate ideologies created a civil war that split the country apart (regardless of the USSR/China and NATO powers mingling). With Germany you had the country split in two by the four occupying powers. The ideology subjected to the East Germans (and well, the West Germans too from the Americans let's be honest) came from an external power; the Soviets.
The German people (especially in the West) wanted to re-unite. I'm not too sure if the North
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Park Jung Hee did a lot of good for the country during his first years in power, as he actually had goals in mind for the nation. When he started to become more concerned with staying in power because he believed that there were no worthy successors is when things went wrong. 2MB might be the worst democratically elected president however.
I am curious (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So, exactly how do YOU propose to get the NK gov. to step aside and allow the merger to occur?
north korea is best korea! (Score:5, Funny)
has most facebook friends! has most tweets!
south korea only has glum relatives and miserly business contacts. north korea has loving adoration and sworn allegiance bonded in blood and exaltation for the perpetual people's struggle and revolutionary apparatus! like it! like it! like it!
our great shining leader tweets 5,000 times a day with 3 million followers 24 hours a day no time for sleep! the people's struggle provides as sleep! each tweet a pearl of wisdom his grateful followers pore over for eternal wisdom in philosophy, economics, military strategy, acupuncture, home economics, and closet organization! retweet! retweet! retweet!
the imperial aggressor america and her boot linking sycophant japan will suffer under the boot of the full force of the people's glorious tweeting and facebook friending struggle!
Because I can (Score:2)
our great shining leader tweets 5,000 times a day
1 day / 5000 = 17.28 seconds
[from Google calulator]
Re: (Score:2)
Oh boy, what are we going to do with you? Clearly the dear old leader would be sending even more twats than 5000 a day, because he is the best leader and all people love him.
To answer your question: yes, he would not be sending those twats all by himself, there would be the necessary resources allocated for that work.
Re: (Score:2)
become his friend.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
suggest to friends.... (Score:1)
Anybody suggested them page to Justin Bieber :D
I can't wait until the first photo tagging (Score:5, Funny)
illegal information... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Like!
(runsforrailgun)
Re:illegal information... (Score:5, Insightful)
like holocaust denial in Germany?
Re:illegal information... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
...is a ridiculous concept
We are talking about North Korea here, the ridiculous is quite routine for them. Indeed, if they even knew enough to know how foolish they appear to the outside world, that would be something, but they don't.
Re: (Score:2)
North Korea's twitter, but it's blocked as illegal information in South Korea.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
...is a ridiculous concept
Wikileaks... USA...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And before people start yelling about "exceptions to freedom of speech", consider this. It is in fact legal to say "Barack Obama is a pedophile" in public, even though it's defamatory - I just did and there's nothing wrong with it. What's illegal is presenting it as fact. Same with "give me 2000 dollars or I'll shoot you". You can even say "fire" in a crowded theater, you just can't shout it at the top of your lungs. It's all about context and intent. Laws that make certain patterns of information illegal n
One thing you need to consider though (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that South Korea is not the US, and doesn't have the same free speech laws. Not everyone subscribes to the same idea of freedom as the US. Some places have freedoms the US doesn't, some lack freedoms the US has.
Free countries don't mean unlimited freedom, and not all free countries are of the same mind on what freedoms people should have.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Facebook is telling me NK's page no longer exists... thought it's twitter and youtube is still around. Also, what do people make of NK identifying itself as male, and being interested in men?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Uhm... That North Korea is a gay male, maybe?
Are they a top? Do they consider South Korea a bottom?
Re: (Score:2)
bad translators
Re: (Score:2)
The answer is obvious (Score:3, Funny)
Also, what do people make of NK identifying itself as male, and being interested in men?
Kim is really, really ronery.
I'd befriend them (Score:4, Insightful)
But then they'd get access of all my friends and activities.
With all the kidnapping they've done in Japan, Korea and elsewhere, who knows what is the real purpose of that page.
I'd say collecting information on potential targets is high on the list.
/ puts on the multi-ply tinfoil hat.
Re: (Score:2)
FB user name is 'uriminzokkiri' for those who don't want to RFTA, btw
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. Remember, a lot of left-wing movements in Western Europe were heavily infiltrated (some sponsored) by the KGB, who (correctly) judged that people who would participate in such a movement would already be interested in or supportive of the regime; so they used those as pools of potential agents.
On the other hand, what would you do with a guy who went in after a random girl's picture on a website? To me it only shows a lot of plain stupidity and high hormone level, neither a particularly valuable
I wonder what happens if you poke them? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What happens... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Well, you@!#$%^[NO CARRIER]
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
you make him feel ronery, so very ronery [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Pfft. Nothing worthy of attention. (Score:1)
The Accounts In Question (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Patrick Kielty is psychic (Score:2, Interesting)
"Trading" With North Korea - Against US Law? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Simply providing a place for communication appears not to fall under the US trade restrictions. There are Iranians living in Iran with FB accounts.
Blocking one page? (Score:2)
I'm curious how they are able to block one single page. Does SK have a "great firewall", too?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think his point is that by only applying the deep inspection on traffic to/from a specific IP address, by means of techniques like source routing (Cisco routers can do this ... BTDT), the deep packet inspection isn't so much of an added cost. OTOH, sites like facebook.com and still need a lot of deep inspection threads and capacity. Still, it would not impact other traffic so much.
Great News for me (Score:2)
This is great news for me: it means I will not have the lowest Friends count on Facebook :-)
Blocking Access (Score:2)
I think it's a pity that South Korea decided to block access to these North Korean outlets. Even if North Korea doesn't give its citizens the same benefits, I would imagine it helps to know what people on the other side are saying and are being told. More knowledge and understanding is a Good Thing, particularly when it comes to avoiding and resolving conflicts.
Great Firewall of S. Korea? (Score:2)
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."
Illegal information? What pray, may I ask is "illegal information"?
It's a rhetorical question Farley!!
S. Korea, meet the kettle. If you're going off about N. Korea censoring their media, you need stop pulling the same type of crap they do.
Re: (Score:1)