WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 (Yonhap) -- The United States Monday ridiculed North Korea for joining the Facebook social networking Web site, citing a lack of participation by North Koreans, who are not allowed access to Internet.
"The real question is whether North Korea will allow its citizens to join in Facebook," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. "What is Facebook without friends?"
File photoNorth Korea launched a Facebook page last week and opened a Twitter account and a YouTube channel in recent weeks, apparently to bolster its propaganda campaign against South Korea and the U.S.
In response, South Korea has banned access to the North Korean Twitter account, opened under the name of Uriminzok, by South Koreans using domestic Internet Protocol addresses under the National Security Law, which bans any unauthorized visit to and communication with North Korea.
Seoul has not yet shut down access by South Koreans to the Facebook page and YouTube channel run by North Korea, but is considering doing so.
Crowley has written in his Twitter account on several occasions about the North's new cyber-campaigning.
He expressed hope last week that North Korea's entry into the global networking systems will help information reach deep into the reclusive regime.
"The Hermit Kingdom will not change overnight, but technology once introduced can't be shut down," he said.
Not many North Koreans have access to computers and the Internet. The technology is not widely available in the world's most isolated country and the government restricts the flow of information.
On Twitter Thursday, Crowley dismissed as ridiculous North Korea's response to the proposal by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak for Korean reunification.
"North Korea called South Korea's reunification plan -- and the freedom and prosperity it represents -- ridiculous," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley tweeted. "How ridiculous is that?"
Crowley was responding to the North's criticism of Lee's earlier proposal for a new tax to fund the eventual reunification of the Korean Peninsula, divided since the end of World War II.
The South Korean president called for North Korea's denuclearization and an integrated economy before eventual reunification.
Pyongyang has called the proposal "ridiculous rhetoric" and "sheer nonsense" tantamount to an announcement of an all-out confrontation to bring down the North Korean regime.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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