North Korea’s Kim Jong Un administration continues to be in the limelight for its overtly controlling practices. Fresh evidence of Orwellian practices has emerged after a phone smuggled out of North Korea revealed chilling details about how the secretive dictatorship is exercising control over its people. To suppress cultural influence from South Korea and any potential uprising, the North Korean regime is a step ahead and is using modern technology for its draconian clampdown. BBC recently analysed a smartphone smuggled out of North Korea last year. All of these devices do not have access to internet. North Korean government uses language auto corrector to censor common South Korean slangs. The term “South Korea” is auto-corrected to read “puppet state,” while “oppa,” which refer to a boyfriend in South Korea, is replaced with the word “comrade” which is more communist-friendly alternative, BBC investigation discovered. The most chilling revelations that have surfaced are that of “screenshots every five minutes.” In the video, BBC correspondent assessed the smuggled gadget physically, she can be heard saying, “The phone is taking screenshot every five minutes or so, but the user can’t open these files, only the authorities can so they can see what people are looking at or sharing things they are not supposed to.”

Full story : North Korea’s regime deploys technology to censor language, monitor users, and eliminate South Korean cultural influence, revealing the extent of its authoritarian control over citizens’ lives and information.