A phone that was smuggled out of North Korea has revealed some of the methods Kim Jong-Un uses to censor the country’s population.
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According to a BBC investigation, the smartphone included warnings against using South Korean slang and automatically corrected the neighboring country’s name to “puppet state.”
The phone also secretly took a screenshot every five minutes, storing the images in a folder that the user couldn’t access but was presumably available to North Korean authorities.
When the user tried to type the word “oppa“—which means older brother in Korean but is commonly used in South Korean slang to refer to a boyfriend—the phone automatically changed the word to “comrade.”
Then, a warning would flash, informing the phone user that the term “oppa” should only be used for older brothers, according to the BBC report.
These bizarre censorship practices were exposed after Daily NK, a media organization based in Seoul, secretly smuggled the North Korean phone out of the country late last year.
The phone reveals how Kim Jong-Un’s authoritarian regime is gaining ground in the tech world, with experts warning that North Korea is beginning to gain traction in the information war.
“Smartphones are now an integral part of how North Korea tries to indoctrinate people,” said Martyn Williams, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center and a North Korea technology and information expert, to the BBC.
“The reason for this control is that much of the mythology around the Kim family is fabricated. Much of what they tell the people is lies,” he added.
Using South Korean phrases or speaking with a South Korean accent was officially declared a state crime by Kim in 2023. Members of “youth repression squads” are reportedly seen patrolling the streets and monitoring the behavior of young North Koreans.
Kang Gyuri, 24, who escaped North Korea in 2023, told the BBC she was often stopped and scolded for combing her hair or dressing like a South Korean. She said the squads also stopped her on the street and searched her phone for banned terms.
“I felt so suffocated and suddenly had an overwhelming desire to leave. I thought it was normal for the state to restrict us that much. I thought other countries lived under this kind of control. But then I realized this only happened in North Korea,” she said.
Photo and video: Creative Commons. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
