Researchers dismayed after YouTube blocks North Korea channels

North Korea researchers don't have many windows into the nation known as "the hermit kingdom," so a lot of information they glean comes from the internet.

North Korea's internet presence is more robust than many people assume, and the nation as well as its affiliates have kept up several YouTube channels run by or linked to the government until they were recently banned.

YouTube closed down the government's official channel in December, then recently blocked two additional channels associated with the government: Uriminzokkiri, a propaganda channel, and Tonpomail, which published state TV.

“We love that YouTube is a powerful platform for documenting events and shining light on dark corners around the world, but we must comply with the law,” A YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. "We disable accounts that repeatedly violate our community guidelines or terms of service and when we are required by law to do so."

Uriminzokkiri was shut down following a "legal complaint."

Regardless of the reason, North Korea researchers are not pleased.

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YouTube's December decision to cut off North Korea's state TV channel allegedly came about because North Korea could have made money off its YouTube videos, which would have violated U.S. sanctions. Uriminzokkiri is a propaganda channel, but Pollack -- editor of The Nonproliferation Review -- threw some doubt on the idea that it was closed for the same reason.

Curtis Melvin, a North Korea analyst at the U.S.-Korea Institute who's also in charge of North Korean Economy Watch, made Pollack's same point about ad money. But he also wrote that an executive order signed by former President Barack Obama blocks "all property and interests in property" that "have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support  for, or goods or services to or in support of, the government of North Korea or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order."

If YouTube blocked these other channels due to this part of the order, Melvin wrote that the order is an example of "regulations being written so broadly that they hit and destroy assets that are actually important to the U.S. policy community."

Melvin questioned whether Google, which owns YouTube, might be able to get a waiver to bypass the executive order, but then questioned whether or not the company would bother to fight for something so obviously irrelevant to their financial interests.

"In this case it is just easier for them to be done with the business entirely," he wrote.