On Tuesday, a YouTube spokeswoman said three channels linked to North Korea’s state media were removed after South Korean regulators prohibited them at the spy agency’s request.
English-speaking young women, including an 11-year-old, claimed to offer uncensored insight into North Korean life as informal video bloggers or “vloggers.”
Song A liked water parks, school, and Harry Potter.
She made a video complimenting the North Korean government’s reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak while in lockdown at home, assuring viewers that “everything is under control as it used to be and everyone is just fine.”
The YouTube spokesman stated the channels were removed to comply with “U.S. sanctions and trade compliance laws, including those related to North Korea.”
“After review and consistent with our policies, we terminated the three channels shared with us,” the statement read, without specifying who alerted YouTube.
An official at the Korea Communications Standards Commission confirmed media reports that it had blocked the sites in South Korea last week at the request of the National Intelligence Service because the content was a “promotion” of the North Korean government and had a “positive bias” toward North Korea.
The official claimed the KCSC asked Google, YouTube’s parent firm, to deactivate the accounts.
Western analysts say those channels have ties to official media and cannot independently generate or distribute such content in the tightly restricted North, where only a few have internet access.
According to Seoul-based NK News, the YouTubers are tied to Pyongyang’s Sogwang Media Corporation, which uses social media to promote North Korea.
Due to legal requests, South Korea has blocked North Korea-related Twitter accounts, including “friendship associations” in the U.K. and elsewhere.
Researchers say deleting the accounts cuts off North Korea and media information.
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