North Korea’s censorship extends beyond traditional media to modern technology, with the government now using smartphones to control information flow and language use among its citizens.
NEW: The BBC has obtained a phone that was smuggled out of North Korea that edits words North Koreans aren’t supposed to use.
Wild.
North Korea has now adopted smartphones to indoctrinate its citizens.
If a user tries typing a blocked word, the phone will edit it to a word… pic.twitter.com/InvnIBZPsf
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 31, 2025
The BBC’s report highlights a phone smuggled out of North Korea that automatically edits banned words, such as “oppa” (a South Korean term for older brother, often used slangily for boyfriends) to “comrade,” and “South Korea” to “puppet state,” reflecting the regime’s efforts to maintain ideological purity.
This development is part of a broader crackdown on South Korean cultural influence, including the banning of South Korean phrases and accents, as noted in a recent BBC article from May 30, 2025, which discusses the use of “youth crackdown squads” to monitor and enforce these restrictions.
The phone’s surveillance features, such as taking screenshots every five minutes accessible only to authorities, underscore the regime’s extensive control over digital communications, a practice that aligns with North Korea’s long-standing reputation for extreme censorship, as documented by Reporters Without Borders in their 2024 Press Freedom Index, where North Korea ranks 177 out of 180 countries.
This technological censorship is reminiscent of Orwellian tactics, aiming to reshape language and thought, and is part of a larger information war between North and South Korea, where the North seeks to undermine the perceived freedoms and prosperity of the South, as reported by the BBC on December 19, 2011, discussing the tightly controlled North Korean media landscape.