• Flyberius [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    88
    ·
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    Yeah this popped up on the BBC and as usual it was just “video from years ago”, “appears to show” and then some quotes from defectors saying “they shoot you if they catch you watching squid game”. Just hilarious levels of make-believe.

    • Nevoic@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      Why is the content ubiquitously pirated if it’s legal and totally acceptable in NK?

      I could imagine someone unfamiliar with America saying “weed is ubiquitous and nobody gives a shit”, but that’d be a massive oversimplification given we have a metric fuckton of people in prison for nonviolent drug offenses.

      Could it not be the case that in NK that pirating and watching foreign media is both extremely common and against the law/lands people in prison?

      And if that is the case, then even if this one case happens to be fabricated, there’s likely a ton of cases where people are actually imprisoned for breaking the law, since that’s usually how breaking laws goes. I don’t think it should be against the law to watch foreign media.

      • Rom [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        40
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        Why is the content ubiquitously pirated if it’s legal and totally acceptable in NK?

        This is speculation, but I’m gonna take a wild guess and say South Korea refuses to license media to the DPRK so they literally have no other choice but to pirate it. Like if you tried to obtain a PS1 game in the West right now, Sony isn’t selling the vast majority of them any longer so your best bet is to download it from a ROM site.

      • RISC_Xi [none/use name]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        36
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        Why is the content ubiquitously pirated if it’s legal and totally acceptable in NK?

        Do you pay for content??

        Could it not be the case

        there’s likely a ton of cases

        I don’t think it should be

        Thank you for your feels based analysis

  • robinn_IV [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    68
    ·
    6 months ago

    I read an account by a DPRK defector once. He had been given fingernail clippers that were made in the USA. They were so well made, and cut such neat clean lines that they made him despondent, because he knew the DPRK could never make anything that well.

    flannel-yellow

  • Sinistar [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    64
    ·
    6 months ago

    Gotta scroll down ten comment threads to get to the first one that’s critical of the narrative being presented.

    You can just overlay any text over a video and people believe it.

    Fucking TRUE

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    62
    ·
    6 months ago

    Yeah my coworker tried showing me this. There’s no audio and nothing to indicate what’s actually going on. I don’t know what trials in the DPRK like, but do they really look like this? The audience looked like they were in a stadium or auditorium or something. For all I know this could be a theater and everyone on that stage is an actor.

    I don’t even think watching dramas are illegal in the DPRK lmao. I’m pretty sure nearly everyone in the DPRK watches pirated media they buy on USB drives and no one cares.

  • joaomarrom [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    56
    ·
    6 months ago

    what in the everloving fuck is the SAND Institute? they make it sound like a legitimate organization, but literally the only mentions I can find of it anywhere are either quoting the BBC article or the article itself

    these fuckers can just outright make shit up and there’s going to be some rube who’ll buy it, zero questions asked

  • quarrk [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    53
    ·
    6 months ago

    BBC: They are being sentenced to a life of hard labor for watching tv

    Reality: Me and the boys interrupting the adults to ask if we can buy a Fortnite skin

  • Goadstool [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    50
    ·
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    I swear that educating people on the history of Korea since the war is one of the most effective ways to radicalize them. As soon as you understand why there even IS a North Korea and a South Korea, suddenly all these stories about K-dramas and unicorns are revealed to be the embarrassing fiction that they are.

  • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    40
    ·
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    Yo, any folks on here got info about this SAND institute that sourced this video.

    Trying to look them up only gives me the BBC article about this video which has this to say about them “This video was provided to the BBC by the South and North Development (Sand), a research institute that works with defectors from the North.”

    Something deeply sus about this, if you don’t mind me donning the tinfoil hat a sec.

      • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        That’s a reasonable assumption, but the website Trudge linked to in this thread has a timeline of SAND’s history that starts in 2017 and ends in 2019 (although the “research” section of the website has links to, like, seminars and shit they’ve done since and they’ve maintained a presence on Twitter since 2022, so it’s likely they just haven’t updated the timeline).