Opinions in Seoul divided on allowing free access to \u201cpropaganda\u201d from Pyongyang
\n Pyongyang
\nPacked with missile tests, propaganda hailing the great leaders, and tirades against the United States, North Korea\u2019s top newspaper was long considered so incendiary that South Korea banned its citizens from reading it.
\nBut dovish President Lee Jae Myung is now seeking better ties with Pyongyang and has joked that he doesn\u2019t believe the public will \u201cbecome commies\u201d by reading the Rodong Sinmun.
\nThat means from this week, South Koreans can access the publication \u2014 whose name means \u201cWorkers\u2019 Newspaper\u201d \u2014 at select locations without state approval.
\nProspective readers no longer have to identify themselves and submit an application explaining their purpose, though they still must visit public libraries to view a copy.
\nOpinions in the South Korean capital Seoul were divided on allowing free access to \u201cpropaganda\u201d from Pyongyang.
\nAll media in North Korea is tightly controlled by the government, and the Rodong Sinmun is the mouthpiece of the repressive ruling Workers\u2019 Party.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s like giving people access to Daesh propaganda,\u201d said Park Si-won, a 22-year-old university student, referring to the militant group also known as Islamic State.
\n\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t do that unless you wanted them to join the terrorist group.\u201d
\nHong Se-wung, 81, called the change \u201cundesirable\u201d.
\n\u201cTo allow people to read the newspaper of a hostile country, or to lead them towards reading it, the very idea itself is extremely unsettling.\u201d
\nBut others were skeptical that South Koreans would go out of their way to seek out the paper.
\n\u201cMany people these days don\u2019t even read physical newspapers anyway. I doubt they\u2019ll make the effort to read Rodong Sinmun,\u201d said Son Yu-jin, 27, a graduate student.
\n\u2018Symbolic change\u2019
\nSouth Korea and the nuclear-armed North remain officially at war, and Seoul long banned all access to Pyongyang\u2019s propaganda on security grounds.
\nMany restrictions remain in place \u2014 North Korean websites are still inaccessible from South Korean IP addresses.
\nAt Seou\u2019s national library on Friday, AFP journalists saw a handful of people flipping through copies of Rodong Sinmun, its pages replete with photos of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un \u2014 whose name is always carried in bold type.
\nBut elsewhere, AFP struggled to find a library that had actually implemented the new rules.
\n\u201cPractically speaking, this is really a symbolic change,\u201d said Chad O\u2019Carroll, whose specialist website NK News hosts a platform for reading North Korean media.
\n\u201cOverall, it would be much easier for students of North Korea studies to work with these materials if the South Korean government made the websites of North Korean state media accessible.\u201d
\nThat, he said, would require politically difficult changes to Seoul\u2019s security law.
\nSeoul has vowed to \u201csteadily expand access\u201d to information on North Korea as it works to improve ties that are at their worst levels in years.
\nThe move is not reciprocal \u2014 North Koreans remain banned from accessing any South Korean content at all and risk heavy penalties if caught doing so.
\nLee has described the relaxation of Cold War-era censorship as an \u201copportunity to understand the reality of North Korea accurately\u201d.
\nAnd businesswoman Bae Jee-woo agreed.
\n\u201cEven if South Korean citizens can access the Rodong Sinmun directly, they would be able to interpret it based on their own standards and philosophies,\u201d she told AFP.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s highly unlikely that they would be significantly influenced by North Korea\u2019s propaganda or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Opinions in Seoul divided on allowing free access to \u201cpropaganda\u201d from Pyongyang Pyongyang Packed with missile tests, propaganda hailing the great leaders, and tirades against the United States, North Korea\u2019s top newspaper was long considered so incendiary that South Korea banned its citizens from reading it. But dovish President Lee Jae Myung is now seeking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-523509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n