SEOUL: North Korea held a conference of its journalists union for the first time since 2001, state media said Wednesday, as the isolated regime ramps up nuclear threats despite reported food shortages.
The official Korean Central News Agency said the conference took place "at a critical time", with attendees urged to redouble their efforts to push leader Kim Jong Un's ideological line.
The Kim family has ruled the country for more than seven decades with an iron fist wrapped in a pervasive personality cult, propagated via state media.
The North is regularly rated one of the worst countries in the world in terms of press freedom.
The conference, held on Monday and Tuesday in Pyongyang, was the first time the union has convened since Kim was declared leader in 2011.
It emphasized that journalists "should become ardent believers, staunch defenders and thorough implementers of the revolutionary idea of" Kim, KCNA said.
Last year the North declared itself an "irreversible" nuclear power, and Kim this year ordered his military to intensify preparations for a "real war".
The impoverished country has also been struggling to tackle chronic food shortages, with some reports of starvation emerging.
Wednesday's KCNA report said conference attendees were told a political and ideological campaign must be "vigorously launched" to inspire "the entire country" to implement the regime's rural development strategy.
"In North Korea, journalists are the elite warriors of the party's political propaganda," said An Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies.
"It's an order from the regime to write articles that are much more fierce and loyal to Kim. The fact that the North feels it needs more propaganda may signify that its food situation is not getting any better."
An told AFP the convention could also suggest another nuclear test was coming, "perhaps on April 15th -- the birth anniversary of (the North's) founder Kim Il Sung".
"The regime may have wanted to prepare its reporters before the massive coverage of the test."
North Korea journalists union holds first meeting in 22 years
https://arab.news/c9h5r
North Korea journalists union holds first meeting in 22 years
- Attendees have been urged to fully adopt and implement Kim Jong Un's ideological line
- Reports revealed emerging starvation as the country struggles to tackle food shortages
Grok faces more scrutiny over deepfakes as Irish regulator opens EU privacy investigation
- The regulator says Grok has created and shared sexualized images of real people, including children. Researchers say some examples appear to involve minors
- X also faces other probes in Europe over illegal content and user safety
LONDON: Elon Musk’s social media platform X faces a European Union privacy investigation after its Grok AI chatbot started spitting out nonconsensual deepfake images, Ireland’s data privacy regulator said Tuesday.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission said it notified X on Monday that it was opening the inquiry under the 27-nation EU’s strict data privacy regulations, adding to the scrutiny X is facing in Europe and other parts of the world over Grok’s behavior.
Grok sparked a global backlash last month after it started granting requests from X users to undress people with its AI image generation and editing capabilities, including putting females in transparent bikinis or revealing clothing. Researchers said some images appeared to include children. The company later introduced some restrictions on Grok, though authorities in Europe weren’t satisfied.
The Irish watchdog said its investigation focuses on the apparent creation and posting on X of “potentially harmful” nonconsensual intimate or sexualized images containing or involving personal data from Europeans, including children.
X did not respond to a request for comment.
Grok was built by Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI and is available through X, where its responses to user requests are publicly visible.
The watchdog said the investigation will seek to determine whether X complied with the EU data privacy rules known as GDPR, or the General Data Protection Regulation. Under the rules, the Irish regulator takes the lead on enforcing the bloc’s privacy rules because X’s European headquarters is in Dublin. Violations can result in hefty fines.
The regulator “has been engaging” with X since media reports started circulating weeks earlier about “the alleged ability of X users to prompt the @Grok account on X to generate sexualized images of real people, including children,” Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said in a press statement.
Spain’s government has ordered prosecutors to investigate X, Meta and TikTok for alleged crimes related to the creation and proliferation of AI-generated child sex abuse material on their platforms, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Tuesday.
“These platforms are attacking the mental health, dignity and rights of our sons and daughters,” Sánchez wrote on X.
Spain announced earlier this month that it was pursuing a ban on access to social media platforms for under-16s.
Earlier this month, French prosecutors raided X’s Paris offices and summoned Musk for questioning. Meanwhile, the data privacy and media regulators in Britain, which has left the EU, have opened their own investigations into X.
The platform is already facing a separate EU investigation from Brussels over whether it has been complying with the bloc’s digital rulebook for protecting social media users that requires platforms to curb the spread of illegal content such as child sexual abuse material.
