YouTube has blocked North Korea's state television channel, which broadcasts news on everything from nuclear tests to Kim Jong Un's outings, to avoid breaching American sanctions against the defiant regime.
The action was apparently taken not because of the content in the channel but because the North Korean regime could earn money from it through advertising.
"This account has been terminated for violating YouTube's Community Guidelines," a message on the Korean Central Television channel's page reads.
YouTube's community guidelines ban videos that include violent, sexual or harmful content, or breach copyright. Google also asks users to flag content on that may violate the law.
The Washington Post understands that Google, YouTube's parent company, blocked the channel last last month to avoid breaching sanctions, but the company has so far declined to comment.
"We don't comment on individual videos or channels," said Taj Meadows, head of communications in Asia for Google, "but we do disable accounts that violate our terms of service or community guidelines, and when we are required by law to do so."
Under sanctions imposed in March this year, the Treasury department designated North Korea's Propaganda and Agitation Department for engaging in censorship on behalf of the North Korean authorities. The measures ban any American company or person from doing business with the department.
Joshua Stanton, a lawyer and keen proponent of sanctions who writes the One Free Korea blog, said that YouTube and Google probably realized there was a problem with money changing hands.
"Having reviewed the sanctions in March, they would have said that this is risky, we are potentially in violation," he said. "It's good that they have done this, although it's a fairly small piece of the picture."
Bruce Klingner, an Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation, said North Korea had other options. "The Propaganda and Agitation Department is perfectly free to post the videos without making money on them, or have one of their many supporters do it," he said. "Or they could stop censoring free expression inside North Korea."
The channel used to show North Korea's evening news broadcasts and other propaganda programs, and at times featured breaking news. After the January nuclear test, Korean Central Television went live on YouTube, with the announcer declaring that the state had tested a hydrogen bomb, although this was disputed by scientists.
The decision has disappointed analysts who used the channel for insights into this most impenetrable of states.
"While it provided daily news shows on events the regime wanted shown countrywide, it also helped give context to structures I would normally only see via satellite image," said David Schmerler, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey.
Using this account for image collection, along with other sources, allowed North Korea watchers to build a much fuller sense of how something unfolded, Schmerler said.
"This led to a better understanding of an event, even if the North Koreans tried to hide or spin a particular event as being a success when it may not have been," he said.
While there are other YouTube channels that broadcast North Korea's news bulletins, this one was the fastest and one of the most reliable sources of images. The channel's termination also means the archive of videos that analysts pored over have also disappeared.
Because the channel has been shut down, The Washington Post was unable to see how many views the clips had and therefore unable to work out how much money the channel was making money from ad revenues through YouTube. But analysts estimated that the amount was likely minimal.
The Washington Post
Wed Dec 14 2016
REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
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