Pretty cool article about the use of the internet in North Korea.
1) Why is the country so secretive?
2) What other forms of media/information are monitored like this is North Korea?
3) How would you react if this happened at our school? or our country?http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/02/23/north_korea_where_the_internet_has_just_5500_sites.html
This is my post for the week:
ReplyDeleteWith all of the freedom that we have here in Canada, it's shocking to hear that other parts of the world do not have the same freedom. People often complain about corruption of Canada and the US but hearing of how less fortunate they are in places such as North Korea makes me feel quite fortunate to live under our government, despite it's flaws.
This ultra-filtered intranet, although unavailible to most North Koreans just provides the government with a more efficient means of spreading propaganda. The websites are not being used for social media or communication, it is design to distribute information to wealthy scholars fortunate enough to have access to a computer. They also have government officials that monitor what you do with your time on the computer, but the computer programme "Bright" restricts people to an extent where there is harding the need for individuals to be monitored by officials. At school, what we do on the computer is already being monitored by teachers or librarians, however, we still have the freedom to search whatever we wish as long as it abides to what the school has deemed "appropriate". Although we aren't being closely watched through our internet use on our personal computers in the comfort of our own homes, the websites we view are still recorded and information that we post on the internet can be used against us. I personally regard the internet as an opressive tool, however, I am grateful because we have the freedom to browse whatever we so desire without the fear of execution or enprisonment.
Here is an article that I read in order to gain a further understanding of the matter:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/3/report-sheds-light-bright-north-koreas-internet/
I agree with you Gabrielle. After reading this article it made me grateful and appreciative of the government we live under. I feel that people, myself included, do not fully acknowledge the privilege we have of our way of life and just focus on the flaws within it. We need to become more aware of our surroundings, to understand that what we have is should not be taken for granted.
DeleteI think that the immense difference between our internet systems and North Korea's is actually quite interesting. The population there is using it as a very different resource than we do. Unlike our communication hub, North Korea uses their's like a virtual library, or information hub. Unfortunately, though, the information available is censored by the government, and not available to the majority of the population. I think that there is a possibility their idea for the priority of an information resource is reasonable, but I do see how the government's censorship could lead to corrupt views, or propaganda.
DeleteSo in this way appreciate that we can see and filter through many different angles on an issue in Canada for sure, and I hope that soon North Korea will be able to do the same.
i agree with you Gabrielle, i think it's insane how much control North Korea has over what the people in their country are seeing and have access to!
DeleteThis is my post for the week
ReplyDeleteIt is shocking that in other parts of the world like North Korea their freedom is so limited. Considering in Canada we can literally pretty much do anything we want on the internet with no limitations. It really should make us feel so grateful and thankful because of all the freedom we have. I think that a possible reason North Korea is so secretive and people only use the internet for things strictly like academics and learning, is because of their poor government system, the leader of North Korea probably doesn't want the people in North Korea to know about all of the freedom and opportunities and fun things that people have in the rest of the world because they may realize how poor they have it and not want him as a leader anymore which is why their internet/intranet use is so monitored and limited. I think that he wants to keep them sheltered and away from the freedom and reality of the rest of the world (social media, online shopping, vacations etc) because they are unaware of all of it and that's how he wants to keep it. Their emails are also monitored because he wants to limit the amount of communication they have with others around the world. I would imagine that their traveling options are also limited for the same reason that he doesn't want them to be aware of the greatness outside North Korea. I think that if this happened in our country it would be chaos because so many people invest themselves so much in social media. People wouldn't know how to react because it would be so shocking and you couldn't do regular things that people do every day in Canada like Facebook, emailing whoever you want or looking at a variety of other things online. It really shows how much freedom we take for granted in Canada because we can use the internet for millions of things and some people around the world are so in the dark about it.
This explains the use of Intranet in North Korea m.bbc.com/news/technology-20445632
I agree with you Julia. As I said in my weekly post, knowledge is power. The more knowledgeable the Koreans become of the world around them, the more these people are likely to have different opinions against the government. Blocking this internet access seems like a shield from the potential life that they could have. It's extremely unfortunate but at the same time we must feel lucky that we have these internet privileges that others do not.
DeleteThis is my post for the week!
ReplyDeleteWow this article is a little shocking. North Korea is a place I feel like we don't know a lot about except for in a negative light. In the news you always hear about North Korea having destructive and nuclear weapons when I feel like their so secretive that we don't really know if any of it is true. If the rumours about North Korea are true I understand why their secretive. Hearing about people who break the rules going missing and never getting heard from again is something here in Canada we obviously look down upon. They also have a high poverty rate as stated in the article below and many people are under nourished. I think Kim Jong-Un, like most communist leaders have a big ego and don't want their country looking bad, or in this case even worse than it may or may not be.
Everything we hear about North Korea makes it seam like "Big Brother" is watching over them all the time. In the same article below it says they have a military of 1.9 million out of their 24 million people. They probably have spies listening in on everything anyone would say. I really feel they have control over everything from tv to the internet or "Intranet" to even the way people think.
I would be uncomfortable knowing something like this was going on at Central or in Canada, but I do believe that's just out mindset. We have freedom of speech and were aloud privacy so if we got that taken away from us I think many people would be uncomfortable with the situation. Though I do think in a way it could by good. With social media there is a lot of cyber bullying and if we were being watched they might have a better hold on that very serious problem. I strongly believe there is a good and bad to everything and I believe this is one of the issues that falls into that category of good and bad.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/dec/19/north-korea-facts-secretive-state