A video shared on social media in March 2024 shows North Koreans pretending to use the internet.
On March 11, 2024, a video purportedly showing North Koreans pretending to use the internet went viral on X (formerly Twitter). A viral article says, “This is what North Korea’s internet will look like.” ×postwhich has over 14 million views as of this writing.
North Korea: Yes, you can access the internet
The internet in North Korea is like this: pic.twitter.com/GKbMGvea4b
— Historical videos (@historyinmemes) March 11, 2024
So the video, shot in 2013, is real, and its producers said the venues featured in the footage were “designed to convince us of that.” [North Korea] We had access to the internet like other countries, but we knew that wasn’t true. ” Therefore, we rated this claim as “True.”
This clip was featured in the 2013 “Hermit Kingdom” episode of the documentary series “Vice” (starting around 15:45) and can be viewed on YouTube.
This video shows a Vice journalist visiting a computer lab in North Korea, and the silence and lack of activity of the students suggests it is a staged environment rather than a genuine situation. ing.
During their visit, journalists encountered North Korean students who claimed to be collaborating with European scientists to research string theory, a sharp contrast to known information restrictions in the country. The overall impression is that the visit was carefully orchestrated to misrepresent the reality of internet access and academic freedom in North Korea.
Below is a transcription of the portion in question from the documentary.
Narrator: Next they took us to a computer lab. The students were using the internet there. And the first thing you think is, “Wow, this looks like a lab at my hometown university.” But then I find myself completely silent. No one is doing anything. No typing, no mouse clicking, nothing. There was a man looking at the Google homepage, but he wasn’t searching for anything. He just stared blankly at the screen. The one person we met there who actually seemed to know how to use a computer was of course the one they wanted us to meet.
North Korean student: Hello, nice to meet you.
Journalist: It’s great to see you again. Sorry to disturb you while you’re at work.
North Korean student: Yes, I was looking for my paper to be published in a magazine. This is about string theory and is being done in collaboration with foreign scientists in Europe.
Journalist: Oh, great, that’s great.
Narrator: Given North Korea’s reputation for completely and totally suppressing information, this outage is clearly an attempt to convince us that they have the same access to the internet as the rest of the world. was planned, but we knew it wasn’t true. So we wondered, was what we were seeing real? It felt like we were walking through a real live “Truman Show” made just for us. Everything we went and everything we saw was designed to tell us the exact opposite of what we know about North Korea.
The website of People for the Success of Korean Unification, a Seoul-based NGO that defends human rights in North Korea, provides some background on internet use in the country, stating that “Most North Koreans do not “They don’t know that the global internet exists.” It has been banned since it was invented. ” It continues (emphasis on us):
This is done to block the inflow of outside information and protect the stability of the government. Instead, North Koreans rely on a state-controlled domestic intranet, a heavily censored and restricted alternative. Only a small number of citizens have the privilege of using the global World Wide Web, including government officials, professional researchers, and those working overseas.
North Korea’s restrictions on access to the global Internet and intranets pose serious concerns for the political, social, and economic freedoms of the North Korean people.
The organization has released a 2021 report titled “New Frontiers in Human Rights: Digital Rights in North Korea” that explores this topic in detail.
“North Korean citizens are subject to extensive government control when using the internet and personal digital devices. This is largely because the internet has become part of people’s daily lives in this new digital world. This is inconceivable to humans,” the report’s foreword said.
This is not the first time we have fact-checked footage from North Korea. For example, in January 2024, we verified whether a viral video of Kim Jong Un watching a volleyball match was authentic. In April 2017, we investigated whether missiles displayed during North Korea’s military parade were fake.
