Twitter for propaganda

N. Korea should not abuse social networking sites

North Korea is free to use the world’s fascinating social networking system, Twitter. But, the question is how to utilize it. No one believes that the reclusive nation would allow its citizens to have access to the networked world. Needless to say, the North’s dictatorial regime has imposed an information blackout on its people to tighten its hold on power.

Now, attention is focused on the news that the North has begun to operate a Twitter site. The North’s government-run website called Uriminzokkiri opened a Twitter account on Aug. 12, just after launching a YouTube channel last month. The account under the name of ``uriminzok (our nation)” has garnered over 5,000 followers since then.

The account tweeted 13 links to the website’s reports praising the Kim Jong-il regime and slandering the South Korean and U.S. government. In short, Pyongyang has just started mobilizing Twitter and YouTube to step up its propaganda war against Seoul and Washington. The links include such titles such as “merciless retaliation” against the South and America. One of them even calls the Lee Myung-bak administration a “prostitute of the U.S.”

The propaganda offensive has come in the wake of the North’s sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in the West Sea in March. Through Twitter and YouTube, the North is apparently trying to shirk its responsibility for its torpedo attack on the naval vessel that claimed the lives of 46 South Korean sailors. It is also making efforts to denounce the South and the U.S. of staging joint war games aimed at preventing the belligerent state from further military provocations.

It is highly regrettable that the world’s last Stalinist country is making a bad use of the social media forums for only propaganda purposes. The North has been engrossed in exploiting modern science and technology, which should be utilized for peaceful purposes, to make nuclear bombs and other types of weapons of mass destruction.

In the networked world, openness and free communication are the name of the game. But, the North is doing the opposite to raise tension and hostility against its neighbors. Such a move by the recalcitrant regime is tantamount to cyber terrorism. It is no secret that the North operates an elite unit of hackers which reportedly attacked websites of South Korean and U.S. government agencies and businesses last year.

Despite Pyongyang’s propaganda, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley welcomed the North to Twitter, while urging its iron-fisted rulers to allow its citizens full access to the social networking system. ``The Hermit Kingdom will not change overnight, but technology once introduced can’t be shut down. Just ask Iran,” he said.

We urge the North to stop using Twitter and YouTube as the propaganda tools. And we hope that North Koreans will be allowed to communicate with the outside world via the social media networks.

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