- This seems like an appropriate sentence for listening to Radio Free Asia lmao
- This definitely didn't happen
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1341056354396549123
The U.S.-funded news source reported last week that a man who was identified only by his surname Choi was executed in front of dozens of other captains after admitting to authorities to listening to Radio Free Asia for more than a decade.
I saw this article yesterday and was just dumbfounded. How can Radio Free Asia fabricate such a ridiculous story and claim there were 100 witnesses to the execution? And that news has spread throughout the public? Can they get away with lying because there's no way to confirm this from the DPRK government or people, and us westerners are supposed to just eat it up?
Yeah, people simply don't question things they know absolutely nothing about.
Source: 4 years ago I probably would've believed this. Until I read chapo I never questioned news about the DPRK, for a couple of reasons:
I had more faith in the neutrality of newspapers and the general public's opinion
From a young age I only ever heard that the DPRK was effectively ruled by a cartoon villain, and if you believe something from a young age you're less likely to question ridicoulus things
I didn't really care to verify anything
Combine these factors and you can tell someone pretty much anything and they'll believe it.
I was in the exact same position as you up until maybe 2-3 years ago. When I first started browsing /r/cth, I was really confused and kinda disturbed that people unironically supported DPRK, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and Stalin. I was the same type of lib who had general trust in publications like NYT and WaPo, and didn’t think outside the narrative of West is best until I got de-programmed.
yep.