The online future of North Korea

Many North Koreans have no idea the Internet even exists and whatever web access there is in North Korea is heavily filtered. This, despite the fact that their neighbors to the south have one of the highest rates of Internet adoption in the world.

But now that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il has died, we can’t expect an online revolution. “Of course we hope that the country will start to open up a little bit,” says Jillian York of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “but given the events this year and the use of the Internet throughout the Arab Spring, it seems unlikely that the Internet would be welcome there.”