Mick Hartley

Meet North Korea's exciting new smart phone, the Samtaesung 8. Not of course in any way a rip-off of South Korea's Samsung range. This latest model now has a screenshot function – “Take a screenshot by swiping downward with three fingers on the screen you want". But there are issues.

Yet the function doesn’t work universally. For instance, in the “Collected Works” app—which contains the works and revolutionary history of North Korea’s supreme leaders—screenshots don’t function on the starting screen or with saved documents. This appears to be intentional, as authorities may consider using a downward swipe on content related to the supreme leader disrespectful.

This restriction parallels how the mouse pointer disappears when hovering over Kim Jong Un’s face in photos on North Korean media websites like the Rodong Sinmun newspaper or KCNA. This prevents the pointer from obscuring the leader’s face—a measure tied to North Korea’s leader idolization policies.