Disrupting the North Korean Regime’s Control: Increasing Information Access
North Korea is the most closed and isolated information environment in the world. The regime’s control hinges upon suppressing outside sources of information that could contradict or undermine their ideology. This makes their system of repression extremely effective; it also highlights a critical weakness, one that creates an opportunity for us to effect change inside the country.
Information is power. It enables people to scrutinize the world around them, hold governments accountable, and aspire towards a better life.
At Liberty in North Korea, we’re empowering people inside North Korea with tailor-made tools and technologies that increase their information access, and make that access safer and easier. But what does this actually look like? We asked our Chief Strategy Officer, Sokeel Park, to answer some frequently asked questions about our Information Access Programs (IAP).
1. Without the internet, is it really possible to increase information access inside North Korea?
Yes, absolutely. North Korean people are already accessing uncensored information and media without the internet, notably through USB drives and MicroSD cards that are smuggled into the country and spread through sharing networks. These contain K-dramas, movies, music, and information that the North Korean regime tries so hard to keep out of the country.
The devices and hardware are already in use, the demand is there, and the sharing networks and behaviour exists. The need and opportunity is to leverage and build on this, providing new technologies that will help North Korean people access more uncensored information more safely.
2. Isn’t enabling North Koreans to access illegal foreign media putting them in danger?
Accessing uncensored information is risky in North Korea, especially with increased crackdowns and punishments in recent years. Our technologies and digital security tools equip North Koreans to access information more safely.
North Korean people will continue to take risks for information and media that most people in the world would take for granted.
User security is our highest priority in our development process, and this is guided by North Korean defectors who left the country recently, understand the environment, and can advise us on the best ways to protect and empower North Korean people who are trying to access uncensored information.
3. What is LiNK doing to increase North Korean people’s access to information?
LiNK’s IAP work can be broken down into four areas of focus.
We develop lightweight, secure programs help more North Koreans access more uncensored information; protect North Korean users with digital security and anti-surveillance measures; create and curate strategic content that meet North Korean people’s needs and build resilience to the regime’s propaganda; and work with distribution partners to deliver these technologies and content packages to North Koreans as reliably, effectively, and safely as we can.
4. Why did LiNK decide to do Information Access work?
In a 2024 HanVoice Woorion survey of 500 North Korean refugees, 86.2% agreed that “it is important to increase the flow of information to North Korean people.” This is the most effective way that we can support change inside North Korea.
As an organization, LiNK is uniquely positioned to do this work. With our long history of rescuing and supporting North Korean refugees, we have the networks and ability to work closely with a variety of North Koreans, including recent defectors and people who studied and worked in IT in North Korea, who inform and help test our products and strategies from start to finish.
Crucially, because of the support of people like you, we are able to make strategic investments in projects that governments or other funders may not support, which enables us to pursue the most effective long-term strategy possible to support North Korean people to achieve their freedom.
5. What kind of information can North Koreans access, both legally and illegally?
Legally, North Korean people have access to official media which is extremely centrally controlled and produced. There are no newspapers, TV stations or media channels with an alternative viewpoint from the government, and all official media serves to reinforce the regime’s ideologies and narratives about the outside world, their own country and the leadership. This official media includes, for instance, newspapers, North Korean films and dramas, carefully selected foreign (eg. Russian) films, partially censored sports broadcasts, radio, speeches by the ruling Kim family, government-approved books, and government-approved mobile apps.
Illegally accessed information or media could theoretically include anything, but most commonly would be movies and TV dramas from South Korea, China and elsewhere, music, some e-books, and foreign radio broadcasts including news and documentary programs. Close to the border with China, some North Korean people have a smuggled Chinese smartphone that can be used to connect to the Chinese network and communicate with or get information from the outside world.
→ Want to learn more about life inside North Korea? Sign up for North Korea 101, LiNK’s free online course!
6. How do we know increasing North Korean people’s access to information will help change North Korea?
Hundreds of interviews with North Korean refugees conducted by LiNK, and thousands more by other organizations, consistently show how access to outside information reshaped their understanding of the world, undermined regime propaganda, and often was key in their decision to risk their lives and seek freedom. We also see the North Korean regime’s crackdowns on this access to outside information, especially in recent years, as evidence that the regime understands the power of information to undermine their control and change their country as well.
Throughout history, we’ve seen similar dynamics in other authoritarian countries, where greater access to uncensored information has consistently increased aspirations for freedom, expanded people’s sense of what was possible, and played a key role in people overcoming dictatorships and achieving freedom across the world.
It is inherently difficult to capture and measure the long-term effects of information, particularly in a country like North Korea. But when history, logic, the testimony of countless North Koreans, and careful product and strategy validation processes all point in the same direction, investing in increasing North Korean people’s access to information is not a leap of faith. It is the strongest, most evidence-based opportunity to help North Koreans shape their future and ultimately achieve their liberty.
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In the first half of 2026, our IAP team successfully deployed new information-access technologies across one of the world’s most tightly controlled borders, and reached people inside North Korea.
We believe North Koreans deserve the freedom to access information and make their own choices, and we’re committed to helping them break through the regime’s surveillance and censorship. Increasing information access is one of the most effective ways that we can have a direct impact on North Korean people’s lives right now.
Help drive change from inside North Korea by investing in LiNK’s Information Access Programs.
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A Little Story about How the Media Gets North Korea Wrong
The North Korean government did not tell the people to prepare for another famine, but you probably saw headlines like this in the last week.
Here's how a mere mention of the 'arduous march' in the North Korean state media blew up and was incorrectly reproduced by media around the world in the space of a couple of days:
On March 28th, an essay by two North Koreans, Park Ok-kyoung and Choi Yoo-il, was published in the Rodong Sinmun (North Korea’s main paper). It included a passage, which roughly translates to “The road of the revolution is long and tough. There may again be times that call for chewing grass roots during an arduous march, and times that call for fighting the enemy single-handedly on a far-flung island...but we have to keep our single-minded loyalty for our dear marshal to the very end even if it costs our lives...”
The reference to the 'arduous march', the same term used to label the North Korean famine of the 1990s, caused a lot of excitement. But the term predates the 1990s famine. The original ‘arduous march’ was actually in 1938-39. It was a supposedly tough period of time that Kim Il-sung's band of guerrilla fighters had to 'march' through to victory in their fight against the Japanese occupiers. This tale credits Kim Il-sung for the defeat and is a classic 'struggle through adversity to final victory' type of story. So when times got tough in the 1990s, the official propaganda machine kicked in and framed it as a national struggle through adversity on the way to a final victory.
It was also about maintaining autonomy in the face of external threats, which was the context for this piece. The piece was meant to build up to the Party Congress in May, which is a massive political event that requires 'ideological preparation of the masses'.
So did the North Korean government tell the North Korean people to prepare to chew grass to survive another famine? Or to prepare to fight the enemy all by themselves on a far-off island? Not particularly. They basically said that the North Korean people must stick with their leader, even if things get tough, and all shall be overcome. And it also wasn't written in the name of Kim Jong-un (that would make it more of a story), but in the name of two individuals writing for the paper.
So, why did this happen?
Far too few journalists can read Korean, let alone know how to read and interpret North Korean propaganda. But there's a lot of international appetite for stories about North Korea. So once a piece like this gets out that makes sense to journalists with a peripheral awareness of North Korea, it is easy for it to bounce around the global media echo chambers, getting picked up by many outlets without any accuracy check on the interpretation.
Furthermore, the North Korean government isn’t going to come out and correct it. Here's where there is some truth in the statement "when it comes to North Korea news, anything goes." At this point it becomes something that ‘happened’ without actually happening.
On a brighter note, thanks to the deeper economic and food security resilience built up by the bottom-up marketization, private-plot farming, and linkage to the Chinese economy, a recurrence of a famine on the scale of the 1990s is extremely unlikely in North Korea now.
[Post edited on 2016-04-11 for clarity and accuracy]
