North Korea blocks access to Instagram

              

Warnings have started appearing on Instagram accounts in North Korea, with users being told that access to the popular photo-sharing app has been denied.

Opening the app using the North Korean carrier Koryolink results in the the following message in English: “Warning! You can’t connect to this website because it’s in blacklist site”. A similar notice in Korean says the site contains “harmful content”, not mentioned in the English version.

Technical support staff at Koryolink said they were not aware of any changes in policy regarding Instagram and there has been no official notice from the government. Its parent company, Facebook, continues to function normally in the capital, Pyongyang.

Social media remains off-limits to virtually all North Koreans, but since the country started to allow foreign visitors access to 3G on their mobile phones in 2013 sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – and more recently, the live-streaming video app Periscope – have come within the reach greater number of people within the DPRK, unusual for a country that has some of the strictest censorship on the planet.

Photos from inside the so-called hermit state on Instagram posted by foreigners provide a window on daily life in North Korea, but they also present a quandary for North Korean officials concerned about the flow of information and images in and out of the country.

Hotel fire

It’s still unclear where the block originates from and whether other sites have been affected, amid suggestions that the block is linked to a fire on 11 June at a luxury hotel often used by tourists and foreign visitors in Pyongyang.

Photos of the fire leaked out of the country and were carried widely by media around the world, but it has not yet been reported by the North’s state-run media. A day later, internet services were suspended for foreigners in Pyongyang.

On 16 June, the internet returned and around the same time Instagram was blocked.

Too much Instagram?

If the timing was coincidental, perhaps the authorities came to notice Instagram through its use by prominent photographers such as David Guttenfelder, a former AP photographer who recently published critically acclaimed shots of Pyongyang.

Or perhaps it was Drew Kelly, a tour guide who has also gained a following for his photos from inside the country, or Wong Maye-E, who also been documenting the capital.

Instagram has remained an expensive tool for foreign journalists and tourists: it costs $450 for 2 gigabytes of data, but perhaps this is a small price to pay for the ability to connect to the internet and to allow a near real-time stream of photographs, messages andvideo from the heart of secretive North Korea.

It is estimated that more than 2 million North Koreans now use mobile phones, but with very few exceptions most are denied access the internet.

Andrea Lee, of Uri Tours, which organises trips to the DPRK, said she was not aware of a policy shift towards blocking Instagram.

“We have been using Instagram to post photos from our tours since Koryolink, the local provider, announced that 3G sim cards would be available to foreigners for purchase,” she said.

“While I’m unaware of this recent shift in policy toward blocking Instagram, I hope this will be a temporary policy as it’s been a great tool for our company to show prospective travellers what our tours are like.”