How many of you are reading this very article, right now, while holding a smartphone? Be thankful that you can, because there are numerous countries around the world where this would be impossible. While you might have the latest Samsung Galaxy or iPhone in your hands, spare a thought for those in places like Iran, Turkmenistan, and North Korea, where your everyday scrolling is something they can only dream of.
Like we saw with the potential ban of TikTok in the USA, and how the United Kingdom has slapped new restrictions on adult sites like Pornhub, some of the more 'free' countries are clamping down.
Even as accusations that we're entering a new era of technology inspired by The Handmaid's Tale, it’s nothing compared to what’s happening to North Korea's citizens. The notoriously strict country has outright bans on foreign and South Korean media, the internet and social media, and a slew of electronic devices. That's not to say there aren't 'smartphones' in North Korea, but as previously reported, they might be little more than devices used by the government to spy on you even more.
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Arun "Mrwhosetheboss" Maini has lifted the lid on North Korea's smartphone industry, taking to YouTube and showing off his experience with two different handsets that were supposedly smuggled out of the country. While some fear Mrwhosetheboss will face the wrath of Kim Jong Un for exposing the secretive state, his video makes for a fascinating watch that shows off some pretty off quirks from North Korea's own take on Samsung Galaxy.
For a start, he showcases the mysterious Haeyang 701 and the Samtaesung 8. In case you hadn't guessed, the latter is North Korea's answer to South Korea's Samsung.
Alongside both phones taking periodic screenshots that are then stored in a hidden folder, he also reveals a football game that removes Asian players, and goes on to allege that Huawei might be providing 'spy' phones to North Korea.
Highlighting the kind of censorship found especially on the Samtaesung, Mrwhosetheboss shows how certain words are changed or just outright removed when typed.
For example, 'South Korea' is changed to 'Puppet State', while 'Republic of Korea' is replaced by asterisks, and you can only refer to North Korea under the traditional name of Joseon.
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Even more bizarre is when you try to type Kim Jong Un and it's automatically put in bold text, or what about trying to use the word 'oppa'? The word is commonly used to mean 'brother' or even 'boyfriend' in slang, but apparently, North Korea doesn't approve.
Oppa is corrected to 'comrade' and is accompanied by a warning that the word can only be used to describe your siblings. Mrwhosetheboss says it's "moderation on a level that I have never experienced before."
Holding these smuggled phones feels particularly dangerous as Maini concluded: "It is bonkers seeing censorship this explicit happening in real time in front of my eyes.
“You physically cannot send the word Namhan [South Korea] even if you try, which shows just how committed North Korea's government is to sustaining its narrative that South Korea is this inferior, less individual country that just blindly follows whatever the US asks them to."