4 ms·

North Korean defectors are paid by South Korean govt and US-funded orgs in order to push propaganda about North Korea. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/o

• WalterGR 5y ago
  Neither of those links support your claims.
  • mrobot 5y ago
    Here is a video that contains some accusations of bribery of defectors and other shady business by NIS (Korean CIA) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktE_3PrJZO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktE_3PrJZO0
    • m00x 5y ago
      Ah yes, Youtube. A trusted source of information.
      • techrat 5y ago
        "Youtube" itself is not a source of information. It is a site where people post videos. Journalists post videos on Youtube through BBC, Economist, Washington Post, Nightline/PBS, etc... Does their posting content on Youtube make them less credible? Judge the originator of the content, not who hosts it. Might as well go "Ah yes, the internet. A trusted source of information." That's how shallow your retort is.
    • jxramos 5y ago
      I'm curious what the AsianBoss would make of the video. His interviews with defectors always seemed so genuine. https://www.youtube.com/user/askasianboss https://www.youtube.com/user/askasianboss
• yongjik 5y ago
  Probably not the current SK government. The current president is liberal side - less pro-American and more pro-peace-talk. (Conservatives would even accuse him of being pro-China, though, to be honest, that's ridiculous.) However, SK is a free capitalist country, and NK defectors need to eat, so some of them find gainful jobs telling conservative pundits what they want to hear. Of course there's no doubt that NK is a horrible, horrible place, but still, sometimes you have to take some of these viewpoints with a grain of salt.
  • La1n 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South_Korea) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South_K... Defectors in South Korea are by law not allowed to talk positive about North Korea.
  • mrobot 5y ago
    I think you are kind of overlooking that the situation is a bit more complicated than just some of the defectors telling conservative pundits what they want to hear. It seems to me from a little digging that detainment of former citizens of the North by the NIS is indeed a coercive process that happens long before the defector even has opportunity to speak to the pundits. How can this be simplified so much?
• soarfourmore 5y ago
  It’s likely true that defectors (by reason they defected) have legitimate stories to tell and they are both paid & given a platform to tell their stories by governments. Giving someone a megaphone doesn’t make their story less true does it?
  • vkou 5y ago
    When you can make a living telling stories about how awful the country you defected from is, it probably makes sense to embellish at least a few of them. It's not like anyone's going to be able to tell the awful and true ones apart from the awful and untrue ones.
    • liversage 5y ago
      I once listened to an interview with the head of the Seoul office of the U.N. Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, and if I remember correctly she said that they had to be careful to base their work on reports from defectors because they were aware that some reports might be exaggerated or made up.