Pro-North Korea Videos are Spreading on TikTok

Videos that are supportive of the oppressive regime in North Korea appear to be gaining traction on TikTok and spreading on wider social media.

"That's an accurate map of Korea... Hopefully they will be united one day," one person on X, formerly Twitter, wrote after showing a map of North and South Korea. The latter was falsely listed as an 'American Occupation Zone.'

U.S. lawmakers have repeatedly raised concerns over TikTok's influence on young Americans and the wider population. Critics accuse TikTok of failing to regulate content putting out both misinformation and disinformation.

North Korea is not a free country. It lives under a volatile dictatorship led by Kim Jong-un and ranks 180th out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index created by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The Department of State advises U.S. citizens not to travel to North Korea under any circumstances "due to the critical threat of wrongful detention." Most of the West views North Korea as a pariah due to its awful human rights record, but some social media videos appear to be trying to change the narrative.

The videos come amid accusations that China is influencing TikTok to propagate views it finds favorable. China is an ally of North Korea and the relationship between the two communist countries is strategically important to China in the region.

Accounts like 'movetonorthkorea' have a total of 4.4 million likes and over 146,500 followers purportedly showing life in North Korea, with many of the trappings of normal Western life such as eating ice cream, luxury penthouses and dining at a restaurant.

The account 'northkoreanlife' shows one video that says the country's capital of Pyongyang "has the best nightlife." The video shows a number of people ambling along what appears to be a main road lit at night. 'Northkoreanlife' has over 286,000 followers.

Another video shows people walking down a street before a narrator says, "Approaching us is a man riding a motorcycle; clear sign of wealth in North Korea." Said motorcycle is riding down a road covered in potholes.

A report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) at Rutgers University says topics important to the Chinese government are given added or less weight depending on them being favorable.

In its conclusion in the report released this month, the NCRI said: "Whether content is promoted or muted on TikTok appears to depend on whether it is aligned or opposed to the interests of the Chinese Government."

The institute recommended democracies "consider appropriate counter-measures to better protect information integrity."

The NCRI said it used the same methodology put forward by the social media app when it rebuffed accusations of skewed bias towards anti-Jewish accounts. This involved looking at numbers around key hashtags around contentious issues and seeing how they performed.

Newsweek reached out to TikTok for updated comment, but a TikTok spokesperson told Newsweek previously: "The report uses a flawed methodology to reach a predetermined, false conclusion...

"It fails to take into account the basic fact that hashtags are created by users, not by TikTok. Most importantly, anyone familiar with how the platform works can see for themselves the content they refer to is widely available and claims of suppression are baseless."

Much of the scrutiny on TikTok centers alleged close connections between its Chinese owner ByteDance and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Governments are concerned that ByteDance would be forced to hand over data to the CCP if instructed to do so.

ByteDance denies storing U.S. data in China, but leaked audio released last year showed that U.S. user data was accessed from China.

Previously, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Select Committee that TikTok could, in theory, be used to put forward favorable narratives.

In May this year, Montana became the first state to ban the app. It was due to take effect on January 1, 2024, but has been halted by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy who said it is likely a violation of the First Amendment.

TikTok remains banned on government devices.