Archive:North Korean websites banned in South Korea

In September 2004, North Korea launched the Kim Il Sung Open University website [1]. Only three days later, Internet providers in South Korea were ordered by the National Police Agency, National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) to block connections to the site, as well as more than 30 others, including Minjok Tongshin, Chosun Sinbo, Chosun Music, North Korea Info Bank, DPRK Stamp and Uriminzokkiri.

Most North Korean websites are hosted overseas in the US, Japan and China. Critics say that the only practical way of blocking a webpage is by denying its IP address, and since many of the North Korean sites are hosted on large servers together with hundreds of other sites, the impact on the number of real blocked pages increase significantly. Estimates are that over 3,000 additional webpages are rendered inaccessible.

The actions may be in response the to the North's clampdown on Southern radio and television, which has been severely restricted for a long time.

References

• Collateral Blocking: Filtering by South Korean Government of Pro-North Korean Websites, OpenNet Initiative, Bulletin 9

See also

• Internet censorship
• North Korea–South Korea relations

Internet censorship by country

• China
• Iran
• Singapore
• Thailand