SCI-TECH

Instagram back to normal in North Korea after blacklisting

The Associated Press Published Thursday, June 25, 2015 2:40AM EDT

A notification saying Instagram has been blocked in seen on both a computer screen and on a smartphone screen in Pyongyang, North Korea on June 20, 2015. (AP / Wong Maye-E)

Text:

PYONGYANG, Korea, Democratic People's Republic Of - Instagram appears to be back to normal in North Korea after a week of warnings on user accounts saying the popular photo-sharing app had been blacklisted for harmful content.

Virtually no North Koreans have free access to the Internet or any kind of social media. But foreigners have been able since 2013 to use the Internet and read email with 3G on their mobile devices within the country on the local carrier, Koryolink. That opened the door for them to post freely to sites like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Instagram access was disrupted for about a week, with warnings appearing in English and Korean that it had been put on a blacklist for harmful content. The warnings disappeared late Wednesday and Instagram was functioning normally Thursday.