A video that appeared on the hermit kingdom's YouTube page showed Jong-un driving a sports car over starving women and children, killing them with a splat of blood. On its Twitter account, @uriminzok, tweets appeared indicting the country's leadership.

Yonhap News described some of the tweets.

"The four most recent feeds posted in the morning accused the Kims of exploiting their people to enjoy sumptuous lives, and develop nuclear arms and missiles. One tweet called for an uprising to slay the Kims 'with a sword.'"

'Let's create a new world by rooting out our people's sworn enemy Kim Jong-il and his son Kim Jong-un!' one tweet read. Another sought to convince readers that the removal of the dynasty would lead North Koreans to live 'as happily as South Koreans.'"

South Korean media theorized that the hackers were South Koreans.

According to one South Korean news daily, the government cited attacks by North Korea one and nine months ago as the cause of the heightened security status and the need to control social media communication. With extensive US assistance, South Korea separated from communist North Korea more than 60 years ago after a brutal war. The tension between the two countries remains some of the most heightened on earth. One of those countries is infamous for extreme control over everything its citizens think and say, but that's not the South.

"This is a measure in response to North Korea's recent attacks on the South Korean Navy ship Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island, which made the role of national security absolutely important," said deputy Justice Minister Hwang Hee-chul.

The Justice Ministry's measure will block South Koreans from accessing social networking-site accounts linked to North Korea. Anyone caught forwarding or reposting content that praises North Korea will be subject to legal punishment, Hwang said.
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The ministry also said it will require foreigners who apply for naturalized Korean citizenship to take an oath saying they recognize South Korea's liberal democracy.

So freedom, discourse and debate are only acceptable during times of relative Peace, but when the chips are down the censorship comes out? Nice, South Korea. That doesn't sound like a very helpful way to relate to social media.

North Korea is such a terrible place that debating anyone who contends otherwise sounds like a much smarter strategy than losing the moral high ground by trying to silence them.

That appears to be what North Korea is doing, with a very awkward attempt to get active on social media channels and get around South Korean censors.

As Twitter user Shel Israel said of South Korea today, "Wait, they're the democracy side, right?"

Much like some have called it ironic that the United States is leading an international campaign for Internet Freedom while calling for the censorship of Wikileaks, this Korean social media conflict will no doubt be cited by those who argue that all governments have an inherent inability to cope with the democratic nature of social media and the new ability to publish world-wide that it offers everyone.

Below, National Geographic's excellent 10-year old documentary, Inside North Korea. Perhaps South Koreans should be prohibited from watching this video, too, lest they share the favorable thoughts about the North expressed by interviewees from that country.

According to a New York Times report from March, Link and Lee were arrested by North Korean border guards near the China-North Korean border after interviewing North Korean refugees in Chinese border towns. During the trip, the two journalists must have entered North Korean territory - though it is not clear if they tried to enter North Korea deliberately or if this was an accident. As Slate's, Nina Shen Rastogi, reported last month when the trial of Link and Lee began, we know very little about how the Central Court, which handles all "grievous cases against the state," really works, though we do know that rulings from the Central Court can not be appealed and that legal education is not a required qualification for being elected as a judge.

The (Potentially) Good News

The Washington Post, however, also reports that several North Korea experts predict that the U.S. government (or an intermediary) and North Korea will soon begin talks to negotiate the release. Chances are that North Korea will try to use the two as pawns to negotiate with the U.S.

So far, Current TV has not publicly commented on this situation.

Laura Ling, a Chinese-American, and Euna Lee, a Korean-American, are in North Korea reporting on refugees fleeing poverty.

It's been a difficult few days for people around the world using new media to challenge authoritarian governments. See also our coverage last night of Omid Reza Misayafi, an Iranian blogger reported to have died in prison.