SEOUL: YouTube has cut off access to a state-run North Korean propaganda channel, as the US seeks to impose tougher sanctions following Pyongyang’s recent nuclear and missile tests.
The shutdown of Uriminzokkiri, which regularly posted video footage boasting of the North’s nuclear and missile programs and others praising the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un, was confirmed Saturday.
“This account has been terminated for violating YouTube’s community guidelines,” said the video sharing website.
YouTube gives no details on reasons why particular accounts are closed down, or for how long. But advertising revenue generated by the accounts could violate US trade sanctions.
Academics use official footage from the channels of missile launches and visits to factories by Kim to gain rare insights into the progress of the country’s weapons programs.
“Tracking and digitally reconstructing events is going to be more difficult as these accounts get deleted,” Scott Lafoy, a Washington-based satellite imagery analyst, told NK News.
The channel serves various propaganda purposes for North Korea.
Last month, Uriminzokkiri published a video featuring the two sons of James Joseph Dresnok, in which they said their father — the only US soldier known still to be living in North Korea after defecting more than five decades ago — had died last year pledging loyalty to the “great leader Kim Jong-Un.”
In July, it hosted a video featuring Lim Ji-Hyun, a female defector in her 20s who arrived in Seoul in 2014 and soon became a public figure, before apparently returning to the North from the “hell” of the capitalist South.
Uriminzokkiri’s social media accounts remained active Saturday.
North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test a week ago, saying it was a hydrogen bomb that could be fitted onto a missile — prompting global condemnation and calls for further sanctions.
In July, it tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that appeared to bring much of the mainland US into range.
The US has formally requested a UN Security Council vote on Monday on tough new sanctions against North Korea despite resistance from China and Russia.
It is not the first time that YouTube has targeted North Korean propaganda.
In November 2016, the video sharing platform closed down state-owned Korean Central TV1. Several other channels including Chosun TV, NK Propaganda and KCTV Stream were also cut off, according to NK News.
YouTube shuts down North Korea propaganda account
YouTube shuts down North Korea propaganda account
Iran to consider lifting Internet ban; state TV hacked
- Authorities shut communications while they used force to crush protests in the worst domestic unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution
- State television appeared to be hacked late on Sunday, briefly showing speeches by US President Donald Trump and the exiled son of Iran’s last shah calling on the public to revolt
DUBAI: Iran may lift its Internet blackout in a few days, a senior parliament member said on Monday, after authorities shut communications while they used massive force to crush protests in the worst domestic unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In the latest sign of weakness in the authorities’ control, state television appeared to be hacked late on Sunday, briefly showing speeches by US President Donald Trump and the exiled son of Iran’s last shah calling on the public to revolt.
Iran’s streets have largely been quiet for a week, authorities and social media posts indicated, since anti-government protests that began in late December were put down in three days of mass violence.
An Iranian official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the confirmed death toll was more than 5,000, including 500 members of the security forces, with some of the worst unrest taking place in ethnic Kurdish areas in the northwest. Western-based Iranian rights groups also say thousands were killed.
ARRESTS REPORTED TO BE CONTINUING
US-based Iranian Kurdish rights group HRANA reported on Monday that a significant number of injuries to protesters came from pellet fire to the face and chest that led to blindings, internal bleeding and organ injuries.
State television reported arrests continuing across Iran on Sunday, including Tehran, Kerman in the south, and Semnan just east of the capital. It said those detained included agents of what it called Israeli terrorist groups.
Opponents accuse the authorities of opening fire on peaceful demonstrators to crush dissent. Iran’s clerical rulers say armed crowds encouraged by foreign enemies attacked hospitals and mosques.
The death tolls dwarf those of previous bouts of anti-government unrest put down by the authorities in 2022 and 2009. The violence drew repeated threats from Trump to intervene militarily, although he has backed off since the large-scale killing stopped.
Trump’s warnings raised fears among Gulf Arab states of a wider escalation and they conducted intense diplomacy with Washington and Tehran. Iran’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia Alireza Enayati said on Monday that “igniting any conflict will have consequences for the entire region.”
INTERNET TO RETURN WHEN ‘CONDITIONS ARE APPROPRIATE’
Iranian communications including Internet and international phone lines were largely stopped in the days leading up to the worst unrest. The blackout has since partially eased, allowing accounts of widespread attacks on protesters to emerge.
The Internet monitoring group Netblocks said on Monday that metrics showed national connectivity remained minimal, but that a “filternet” with managed restrictions was allowing some messages through, suggesting authorities were testing a more heavily filtered Internet.
Ebrahim Azizi, the head of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said top security bodies would decide on restoring Internet in the coming days, with service resuming “as soon as security conditions are appropriate.”
Another parliament member, hard-liner Hamid Rasaei, said authorities should have listened to earlier complaints by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei about “lax cyberspace.”
During Sunday’s apparent hack into state television, screens broadcast a segment lasting several minutes with the on-screen headline “the real news of the Iranian national revolution.”
It included messages from Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s last shah, calling for a revolt to overthrow rule by the Shiite Muslim clerics who have run the country since the 1979 revolution that toppled his father.
Pahlavi has emerged as a prominent opposition voice and has said he plans to return to Iran, although it is difficult to assess independently how strong support for him is inside Iran.
