North Korea is reportedly blocking access to social media websites

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north korea bans social media

north korea bans social media

Social media has brought together people from a certain society together and even made the world more connected than ever. This is power on its own since it is possible to keep up with activities that are happening around the world just a click away.

Governments from around the world have noticed the power of social media and some have imposed bans that don’t let citizens visit these sites. China’s government is the most famous one in this regard since its ban on several social media sites has made people regard it as the Great Firewall.

It seems their neighbour, North Korea is following in their footsteps where according to a report by The Associated Press, they officially announced that they were blocking several social media sites. Apparently the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications posted this on the country’s  main telecommunication service provider where they banned YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Voice of America and South Korea media sites. This was due to the fact that they were concerned about the spread of information in the online space.

That is not all, they have apparently banned gambling and “adult websites” in addition to social media sites “for a certain period of time.” The announcement also discouraged people to hack to the above sites where if they attempted, they would be punished under the law.

Internet usage and penetration in the country is very low and it won’t have a major impact to the general public at first glance. The bigger impact is on the people who visit the country which means they would be cut off from the web.