Seoul: North Korea appears to have added
Facebook to other social networking sites it recently joined
to ramp up its propaganda war against South Korea and the US.
The account opened late yesterday under the Korean
username "uriminzokkiri, meaning "on our own as a nation," an
official at South Korea`s Communications Standards Commission
said on Friday.
The account opened hours after the commission blocked
North Korea`s 1-week-old Twitter account from being accessed
in the South for containing information that is illegal under
South Korean security laws, the official said.
North Korea`s government-run website, Uriminzokkiri,
announced last week that it has a Twitter account and a
YouTube channel created in July.
The Twitter account, under the name uriminzok ("our
nation" in Korean), gained more than 8,500 followers in a week
though it posted just 30 tweets linking to reports praising
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and lambasting South Korea and
the US over ongoing joint military drills.
Uriminzok has "content that praises, promotes and
glorifies" North Korea that was confirmed to be "illegal
information" under South Korea`s National Security Law, a
commission statement said yesterday. The commission said it
has no immediate plan to block the North`s YouTube channel.
A South Korean government warning saying "Illegal
content" pops up when an attempt is made to access the Twitter
account in South Korea.
Commission official Han Myung-ho said the new Facebook
account could be subject to the same fate.
"We are aware of the Facebook account and the police and
the National Intelligence Service are currently investigating
the site to verify whether it is indeed run by the North
Korean government," Han said today.
PTI
