In a decision that has caused ripples across the world, North Korea has declared that there is no access to any social networks in the country, isolating its population from the rest of the.world’s online discourse. The decision took effect today and is considered as the new effort of the regime to strengthen its control over the information process in the country.

The prohibition also affect commonly used Internet services like Face book, twitter, You tube and China’s Weibo which had earlier been available to a lucky few from North Korea. This harsh move comes after the Korean government has tried to erase all history of reunion in the last couple of years by tearing down reunification monuments and erasing propaganda websites.

Some insiders say that the government continues to justify the ban in the name of safeguarding national security as well as to prevent North Korean youths from imitating westernisms. However, critics opine to say that it is one of the tools in the regime, which has continued to suppress the freedom and deny the citizen the opportunity to access information that can put pressure on the regime.

The effects of this ban will not be sparing everyone including the elites and few foreigners who seldom used this avenue. The authorities in North Korea are far from liberal on the Internet issue, most of the country’s people have almost no possibility of accessing the real Internet and are confined to the local internal network called Kwangmyong, and now this has become even tighter.

Independent observers are most worried in regards with human rights reporting and information being received from the country. Today’s defectors and activist have used social media as a tool of spreading stories and pictures of human rights violations in North Korea. That is why this new ban should be expected to make such efforts much more difficult.

The action has also added confusion to North Korea’s future interaction with other countries in the international level. Although the country has never been avowed to liberalistic freedom of speech and interaction, total blocking of social media contact surfaces pulls the country out of diplomacy of interaction.

Amnesty also quote other North Korean specialists who speculate this meaning of crackdown connect to with North Korea’s accelerating concern with regard to imported information and cultural products, especially south Korean ones. The popular cultural products dubbed the ‘Korean Wave’ in its English translation, has been spreading North Korea through the media bureaus and this step being taken by the government shows that the Koreans are on the extreme.

The action has drawn reactions from different international organisations, while human rights organisations have criticised the action as a serious infringement of free speech. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea has urged a decline on the ban and underlined the fact that people have right to access to information all across the globe.

On the other hand, companies whose platforms got banned have offered their disappointment but understanding that they cannot do much to change the status. That is why some are turning to social media, and others are using the radio to transmit information to North Koreans, and satellite web access as well, it remains to be seen how efficient these tactics can be.

It raises an interesting question why North Korea chose to become even more isolated online as the world goes global. It remains to be seen what the long-term effects of this move have been, but what is evident that the regime is willing to continue its policy of information suppression at the expense of continuing isolation from the world.

The blocking of social media is just one piece of the pie in a large matrix that North Korea uses to control all forms of communication that happens within its jurisdiction. This entails tight control of information distribution in traditional media, restrictions in foreign travels as well as extreme penalties for anyone found accessing or sharing undesirable information.

The international community waits and looks for some signs of opening up in the future although it is gearing up for an even more isolated and closed North Korea in the future.