If you save ”oppa” on your phone in North Korea, the heart emoji is also banned.

Since Kim Jong Un came to power, North Korea has been strengthening its blockade of outside culture, including publicly executing those who spread Korean TV series and K-POP, and even restricting the use of emojis.
On the 25th, the UN Human Rights Office Seoul office held a seminar entitled "The Human Rights Situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea over the Past 10 Years as Seen by Victims and Witnesses" at the Global Center in Jung-gu, Seoul.
Kim Il-hyuk, who defected with his family in May 2023 by crossing the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea on a fishing boat, said, "I know a 22-year-old boy who was a teenager.
"In 2015, he was publicly executed for distributing three Korean TV series and about 70 K-pop songs," he said. "There were about two public executions every three months, and once we executed 12 people at once."
In December 2020, North Korea enacted the "Law on the Expulsion of Reactionary Ideology and Culture," which stipulates that anyone who distributes South Korean videos will be sentenced to death and anyone who watches them will be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.
They claim that the death penalty is actually being carried out. There are also testimonies that even the use of emojis is strictly controlled through censorship of mobile phones. One female defector said, "Censorship of mobile phones has been in full swing since 2015.
"When I registered an older man as 'Oppa,' I was told to change it to 'Comrade,' and I was even banned from adding a heart emoji after my name."
A female defector said, "In the past, even if you were caught watching a South Korean TV series, you could get away with paying just $300 to $400, but recently the amount has increased significantly."
"I also liked Korean TV series, so I lived in fear that I would be executed someday," he said. According to the BBC, the smartphone smuggled out of North Korea last year was
The device looks the same as a regular device, but it blocks out Korean catchphrases such as "Oppa," "Chagiya (HANI)," "Jokbalryo (embarrassing)," and "Fighting."
In fact, when you type "oppa" on a North Korean smartphone, it is automatically replaced with "comrade." It continues, "Warning! Only use between siblings or relatives."
The phone also displayed the message "You can search for your phone number." When the user typed in "South Korea," it changed the word to "puppet region." The BBC also reported that the phone had a program that could secretly track the user's activities.
For surveillance purposes, the device is reportedly equipped with a built-in feature that automatically captures the screen every five minutes and saves it in a secret folder that can only be viewed by authorities.
The BBC said authorities were trying to understand whether residents were viewing or sharing banned content.
"This shows the astonishing level of information being censored by the North Korean regime right now," he said. It has also been revealed that food shortages have been severe in North Korea amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
"At that time, far more people died of starvation than died of disease," Kim said. "Prices of food and industrial products soared, and violent crime was rampant."
A female defector in her 20s, who requested anonymity, recalled, "Before COVID-19, we hardly saw any homeless children in the market, but since then, the number of children who have lost their parents and taken to the streets has increased dramatically."
Another defector said, "As life became more difficult, women began to avoid having children. As a result, a new law was announced that will impose a one-year prison sentence on divorce from 2023."
According to the 2024 North Korean Human Rights White Paper, in North Korea, if a woman chooses to divorce or have an abortion, she is sent to a labor training camp.
The UN Human Rights Office released the details of interviews with about 400 North Korean defectors on the 6th of September.
It is scheduled to be submitted to the 0th Human Rights Council as a follow-up report of the North Korean Human Rights Investigative Commission.