North Korea turns to Twitter, YouTube in propaganda efforts

SEOUL - Communist North Korea has discovered the Twitter and YouTube websites as platforms for its propaganda efforts.

After uploading more than 80 videos to YouTube since July, it recently began posting messages in Korean on the microblogging site Twitter under the name @uriminzok (our people).

North Korea had amassed some 3,800 followers by Tuesday.

Most people are not allowed to access the internet in North Korea.

North Korea’s use of the websites has attracted a lot of attention in South Korea because of the raised tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The messages often take sideswipes at the governments of the US and South Korea, describing them as warmongers.

North Korea has also used the sites to defend itself against accusations that it sank a South Korean warship in March.

An international team of investigators in May said that a North Korean torpedo sank the corvette Cheonan.

Tensions between the two Koreas have increased since the sinking of the ship.

The North Korean Twitter and YouTube accounts are registered in the name of uriminzokkiri. Most contributions have links to anti-US or anti-South Korean reports on the official website www.uriminzokkiri.com, which is run by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence in Seoul could not confirm that the accounts were held by the North Korean government. “But they do say there what the state media says,” she said.

The uriminzokkiri and other pro-North Korea websites are blocked in South Korea.