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submitted 2 days ago by RedWizard@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net
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[-] hello_hello@hexbear.net 9 points 1 day ago

it autocorrects "South Korea" as "Puppet State"

Based wtf I love north Korea even more now.

Also lmao presenting squid game as a show that depicts south Korea as free is peak British liberalism.

"Com-raid"

[-] dead@hexbear.net 31 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The woman in the video published an article alongside the video. In the article, it says she obtained from Daily NK. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98pnx35xj2o

DailyNK is a anti-DPRK and anti-communism news website. DailyNK has received funding from National Endowment for Democracy (NED) ie US government funding.

DailyNK published a technical specification breakdown of the phone in the video in February 2025. The article says that they recently obtained the phone. They say this phone is called “Samtaesung 8”. You will notice in the BBC video that there is also an 8 on the phone wallpaper. The article doesn't mention the autocorrect feature or the screenshot surveillance.

https://www.dailynk.com/english/north-korea-smartphone-samtaesung-8-revealed/

https://archive.is/mNon0

DailyNK published an article about the screenshot functionality of the Samtaesung 8 phone in April 2025. This article contradicts the BBC video. This article says that DPRK cellphones only recently gained screenshot functionality and the phone blocks screenshotting when the News app is open (maybe copyright protection?). The BBC video said that the phones had no access to internet but if it has a News app, then it has some form of internet. The screenshot list on the BBC video also doesn't make sense, the timestamps are inconsistent and the file names are illogical.

https://www.dailynk.com/english/n-korean-smartphones-add-screenshot-function-with-notable-exceptions/

https://archive.is/mTlmw

The BBC video seems to be just straight up lying. I have skepticism for the information provided by DailyNK, but they at least show screenshots of the technical information about the phone.


Edit /// The Korean name for the phone is 삼태성8 . You get a lot more search results when searching for the Korean name. There is also a newer model Samtaesung 9 or 삼태성9 . There are some videos on youtube in Korean.

[-] darkcalling@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago

The BBC video said that the phones had no access to internet but if it has a News app, then it has some form of internet.

Maybe some form but "THE" internet is different from "A" internet. THE internet is the big global network that you access propaganda rags like the BBC on as well as the website for the Russian military, as well as the page for the New York History Museum as well as Temu among many other things. An internet could just be a few networks connected together and indeed could include access to news services even ones accessible via HTTP or similar.

So technically correct I suppose in that if true you can't with that phone go and buy Yankees tickets online or post "down with western imperialism" in the comments section of the NYT but you can access remote networked resources. I approve of China's great firewall so I can't really argue against something like this.

[-] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 7 points 1 day ago

the phone blocks screenshotting when the News app is open (maybe copyright protection?).

huge L if north korea gives any shits about copyright

[-] TheSpectreOfGay@hexbear.net 105 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

"they smuggle south korean shows over the border to show people how rich south korea is and how much freedom people have here"

shows squid games

lmao

[-] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 75 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

shows squid games

oh please please please tell me this is a bit.

Oh fuck it is not in fact a bit.

[-] Monk3brain3@hexbear.net 39 points 2 days ago

That was surreal. Like unintentional satire. Along with the hilarious squid game clip south Korea is cooked as well. Their population decline is indicative of a country on its deathbed and all because they squeeze their population so hard to keep their billionaires billionairing

[-] Sinisterium@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

South Korea won’t exist in 30 years max. Its like beyond screwed and the west is coping hard that NK proved to be the superior system for korean peoples, despite being intentionally barred from basic global trade since the 90s.

[-] Monk3brain3@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

Yeah basically it shows the end results of capitalism. It's clearly a death cult. Japan is another example of what the end stage of real capitalism is. As in the real capitalism working properly according to all capitalist principles that economists espouse, the capitalism people fail to recognize, especially the people who defend capitalism by saying it's failures are actually due to the system not being real capitalism. Because even the correct implementation of capitalism even by their own standards is total destruction of a society.

[-] kristina@hexbear.net 57 points 2 days ago

Literacy is a motherfucker huh

[-] RedWizard@hexbear.net 41 points 2 days ago

yeah right????

[-] CthulhusIntern@hexbear.net 19 points 2 days ago

Aren't the only obviously rich people in that show (the VIPs) NOT Korean?

[-] KuroXppi@hexbear.net 48 points 2 days ago

yeonmi-park the DPRK doesn't have a word for love, if you try to type it in your phone it is replaced with the word 'solidarity' and shows a warning that love is a bourgeois emotion

[-] Thordros@hexbear.net 47 points 2 days ago

"Here you can see I have typed in the Korean characters for "Citations Needed", but the device automatically replaces it with "Cumtown". Truly sinister propaganda."

[-] Utter_Karate@hexbear.net 31 points 2 days ago

If you try to call your wife to say hello it automatically calls emergency services and reports her as a dissident instead. And then the person at emergency services who took the call is executed for even hearing about dissident opinions.

[-] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 47 points 2 days ago

Autocorrect replacing South Korea with Puppet State is a bit too much. Getting hard to believe this.

[-] Hexamerous@hexbear.net 26 points 2 days ago

What, they're clearly have it set to Maoist Standard English. Not even my Xiaomi phone have this yet.

[-] jack@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago

You think something is unbelievable about the word "big brother" being replaced by "comrade"?

[-] TheSpectreOfGay@hexbear.net 56 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

also i was pretty interested in knowing about like, its specs and apps and stuff, but instead it's just a bunch of shit you can program in to the settings (replacing the word) and just shit they said was true but didn't show to be true (it taking screenshots every few seconds + not being able to see the screenshots)

sigh live-slug-reaction

[-] buckykat@hexbear.net 48 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

(it taking screenshots every few seconds + not being able to see the screenshots)

Another case of projection this is a "feature" microsoft introduced to windows 11 called recall.

[-] Hexamerous@hexbear.net 17 points 2 days ago

They literally have more control of their user data than any westerner watching this...

[-] BeamBrain@hexbear.net 41 points 2 days ago

I would think that a phone constantly taking screenshots would eat up all its disk space in short order.

[-] TheSpectreOfGay@hexbear.net 34 points 2 days ago

yea, it's very unlikely to happen. that would be a resource intensive process, not just from taking screenshots, but also needing to delete them on occasion so it doesn't fill up all the space... unless they're expecting us to think that every week u turn ur phone into the authorities and they delete it all or something

also if the user can't access them, how do the authorities? do u need like a pin or something? gee whiz that would have been a neat thing to see

[-] RedWizard@hexbear.net 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yeah that was infuriating. They have the audacity to put some cheep ass glitch effect over the video when talking about how you can't access the screen shots.

  1. Tap the photo! Show me it doesn't open!
  2. How do you know they're screen shots if you can't open them?
  3. You can plug the phone into a PC and look at the photos from the PC. Did you try that?
  4. TAP THE FUCKING PHOTO!
[-] CarbonScored@hexbear.net 15 points 1 day ago

NK must be splashing out on those spensy 256GB phones

[-] kristina@hexbear.net 22 points 2 days ago

I'm kinda interested too, I think that the phone might be an oppo phone? Does anyone here know what Chinese brands are allowed in the DPRK?

[-] Skye@hexbear.net 24 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I was curious about the applications shown in the video so I tried looking up their names. I found some info about Gionee phones and Hoozo tablets at the very least, but of course all of it comes directly from Western propaganda sources. This is one of the more interesting pieces since it actually goes into technical specifics a little bit.

Apparently there's even a product line of domestically manufactured phones called Arirang, but ""some analysts"" believe they are secretly made in China. Some of the info also just contradicts itself, like how supposedly tablets and phones have the communication hardware components removed but also Arirang phones are apparently just equipped with full 3G capability, so a lot of this is probably just anti-communist fanfiction

[-] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago

Fyi there is a more recent top level comment with info re the phone. & @kristina@hexbear.net

[-] kristina@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago
[-] kristina@hexbear.net 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I wouldn't be surprised if most of the arirang stuff is just repurposed old western parts from thrown away phones. Its honestly a good thing if it is, at least someone is benefiting from ewaste

[-] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 27 points 2 days ago

Let me guess, it's something truly dreadful?

A device serving the need for communication and entertainment instead of monetization and adds?

Dreadful for capitalists that is.

[-] m532@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 2 days ago

Did they find a necromancy processor inside?

[-] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 22 points 2 days ago

Comrade. Hey waitaminute. Comrade. Wtf‽ Comrade comrade comrade. Arrrrgh!

[-] jack@hexbear.net 17 points 2 days ago
this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
71 points (100.0% liked)

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