Defector: Naver Infiltrated by NorkBots!
Hmmm. I wonder if we’ve seen some of those types around here?
Writer Jang Shin-Jung (former employee of the United Front Department), a North Korean refugee, testified that North Korea’s United Front Department has adopted a new propaganda strategy against South Korea by operating a new internet commenting team to reflect South Korea’s change in media culture. [….]
Jang conjectured that about 30 team members at contact station 101 were cultural experts of South Korea. He described their proficiency in the latest slangs as proficient while posting among the South Korean online community. It was to the point that when Jang knocked to enter the team’s office, the reply would be in South Korean slang.
The teams post on contentious South Korean societal issues on varieties of well-known portal sites, such as Daum and Naver. They also comment on these issues to amplify criticisms. The goal is the same as the number 1 goal of all media propaganda strategies against South Korea, to increase the power of pro-North Korean factions within South Korea. Jang agreed, saying “I saw psychological warfare such as posts insisting that North Korean nuclear weapons are in reality beneficial for South Korea. [Open News]
If this is true, and it seems plausible to me, it would be a completely legitimate tactic. Bring it on, just bring on some counterspeech to correct the record. In fact, I wish our government would train a few bloggers to read, write, and post in Chinese, Pashto, Arabic, and German to argue against all of the urban myths that pass for serious political discourse in what the dumbest among us sometimes refer to as a Global Village.
The problem with this, of course, is that for North Korea, speech is warfare by other means, not a way for people to find their own way to a better life. Stated differently, it’s not a two-way street:
As foreign information flows into its society in the form of smuggled goods from China and interaction with other states, the North Korean authorities have once again emphasized that people should reject capitalist culture and stick with the North Korean system.
Minju Chosun (Democratic North Korea), a publication by North Korea’s cabinet, claimed on Saturday in a commentary piece, “We should never be attracted by the scent of capitalism,” and that, “The imperialists are penetrating us with all kinds of rotten bourgeois lifestyles, using the nature of our sensitive young generation on a massive scale. [Daily NK]
I wonder if it ever occurred to the North Koreans that if their propaganda were less snicker-inducing, literally dozens of adolescent losers in this country might write pro-North Korean blog comments, if only as a vehicle to spite their parents.
It went on to claim that in the former Socialist Bloc the young generation had been rendered psychologically disabled by the touch of capitalism.
Minju Chosun emphasized, “Capitalist elements including America continue to viciously blow a sweet capitalist scent into our country in order to devastate our political and ideological position. Therefore, it is very important work to educate our young so they will not be dazzled by that capitalist wind and to save their fate and guarantee the bright future of the nation.
The publication urged, “Once they are paralyzed by the sweet capitalist wind, they will fall into corruption, ignore the revolution and focus on individual pleasures, so we have to be awake to the enemies’ strategy.
In September, Rodong Shinmun also emphasized the ideology of the younger generations in an editorial. It asserted that harboring any illusion about capitalism is the same as drinking poison, and that blocking the capitalist wind is more important than war with guns.
Surely a country with our ability to put technology into the hands of ordinary people can find a way to give internet access to the North Korean people, though I think the propaganda may overstate the power of free speech. Its reference to the danger of “individual pleasures” brings to mind an army of 1.2 million suddenly rendered incapable of operating any weapon requiring the use of both hands.