WASHINGTON — On the strength of social media-fueled Arab Spring, finally the truth comes out about the new North Korean leader through his tweet on Tuesday:
Not really.
A new Twitter account launched this week takes a jab at the successor to dominion over the enshrouded Asian country. If the uncharacteristic descriptor wasn’t enough to convince the reader of the profile’s illegitimacy (“I used to be an unemployed twentysomething still living at home. Now I have nuclear weapons. It’s all good, yo.”), rest assured it could never exist amid the the severe control exerted by the government over all forms of information, particularly social media.
Thus:
The country’s main source of information both for its own people and of government goings on is the state-run Korean Central News Agency, which also publishes its rather slanted content in English, Russian and Spanish.
Social media expert Ramesh Srinivasan, an assistant professor at the UCLA Department of Information Studies, recently classified to a Washington Post blog the extent to which the North Korean government controls information within the country.
“North Korea is one of the unique countries in the world because virtually every computer or technology that could be used for some social media application is regulated by the government,” he says. “The North Korean censorship approach runs all the way down to the level of hardware.”
Control indeed. Here is a smattering of some headlines from Wednesday:
“S. Korean Authorities′ Crimes against Ethics and Treachery under Fire,” “KCNA Commentary Condemns Japan for Rubbing Salt into Wounds of Koreans Stricken with Grief over Greatest Loss,” “Russian Political Party Lauds Brilliant and Heroic Life of Kim Jong Il”
Stay tuned to the feed for the latest “inner thoughts” of the country’s new glorious leader.
WTOP’s Paul D. Shinkman contributed to this report. Follow Paul and WTOP on Twitter.
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