Imagine that you do not have a Facebook account, YouTube channels, or even Twitter. This is particularly the case of Chinese and North Koreans ...
Thanks to the Internet, you can find a friend on the other side of the world, and only the time difference separates you. But, imagine that tomorrow you no longer have this possibility. How would you feel? Do you know that there are millions of people on the planet who can not contact their loved ones or even surf the sites we love so much? Imagine that you do not have a Facebook account, YouTube channels, or even Twitter. This is particularly the case of Chinese and North Koreans ...
Internet restrictions in China
- To create your own website, you have to go through a long and painful process with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Otherwise, no one will allow you to have one.
- The Chinese government periodically blocks Wikipedia sites. The blacklist includes articles on "delicate" subjects such as the Tiananmen Square massacre, an event that took place in 1989: during a demonstration, the students were dispersed with military tanks and, as a result, thousands of innocent citizens were wounded. The blockage aims to fight the propaganda of violence in the media.
- A whole army of bloggers, members of the "Party of 50 Cents" is in the service of the State. This is exactly what each participant earns for an article or comment written on the Internet. The main task of this army is to positively evaluate the actions of the government. According to the calculations of The Guardian, these modern militants number 300,000. It is estimated that party members instantly deny and ridicule any article that wants to undermine or defame the government.
- Chinese Internet users have learned to decrypt the texts blocked by censorship. To do this, they use the language "Martian", a mixture of hieroglyphs of different origins (often drawn with intentional errors), Arabic numerals and words of English jargon.
- Since 2003, there has been a special project in China called "golden shield", which restricts citizens' access to foreign websites. Its unofficial name is the "Great Firewall of China". This same project also controls the links that lead to foreign media or blogs. In short, not a single Chinese website can access links or translate news from other countries without special permission.
- Chinese people are not allowed to use popular services such as YouTube, Twitter, Gmail, Google Play, Google Docs, Flickr, WhatsApp and Facebook. These sites are simply not available in this country.
- The biggest analogue to the social networks of the rest of the world in China is Sina Weibo. To register, users must provide their contact information, such as their identity card number and their real address.
- In 2013, a law was promulgated on rumors on the Internet. If a user publishes unconfirmed information and has obtained more than 5,000 visits or if he has been shared more than 500 times, he may be sentenced to three years in prison. The artificial intelligence Piyao, called "slander of rumors" helps to identify the non-respect of this law.
Internet isolated in North Korea
- Only organizations that have obtained official authorization can access the Internet in this country, including three universities, several scientific laboratories, security services and ministries, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. All computers are in special rooms where you can enter only with a badge.
- The rest of the North Koreans use the Intranet (National Internet), called Kwangmyong. According to various estimates, this network has 1,000 to 5,000 websites. It is extremely difficult to count, as most of them are not accessible to Internet users.
- In 2017, a computer scientist published on the Internet a complete list of North Korean sites to which the population could access from all corners of the world. There is not too much, just 28.
- On the North Korean intranet, information is published about the Head of State, including his daily agenda in great detail. We can also find entertainment sites: movies, recipes and recommendations for tourists.
- They also have a general chat called "My Country", which is divided into several sections for those who are interested in a specific subject, computers, movies, art, etc. They do not have networks like Facebook or Twitter, at least not officially.
- Each computer must register at the prefecture. To do this, the "Group 109", special character, was created in 2004. Every day, the members of this operation review routinely and unscheduled each device to detect electronic traffic. As a general rule, they are looking for movies and music from other countries.
