Kim Jong-un’s daughter's name has been censored on a North Korean government website

A propaganda website run by the North Korean government is blocking searches for Kim Jong-un’s daughter, and has also deleted content referring to the girl who is thought to be named Kim Ju-ae.

DPRK Today is a Chinese-based propaganda website sponsored by the government of North Korea. According to NK News, the site has been online since 2014, however not much is known about the organisation behind it.

DPRK Today now blocks searches for the name Kim Ju-ae in Korean (김주애) and recently deleted content referring to her, revealing sensitivity around mentioning the girl who some experts consider as Kim Jong-un’s successor.

North Korean government website bans name

As reported by NK News, any searches in Korean that end with 'ae' gives an error page that states 'You don’t have permission to access this document'. The posts that were deleted were about Kim Ju-ae working at the Pyongyang Baby Home and Orphanage. The titles of the posts are still able to be searched on DPRK Today, however the texts themselves have disappeared.

Interestingly, any search for the girl’s name followed by other characters or words, like 'Comrade Kim Ju-ae' (김주애동지), produces the normal search results page. According to NK News, this suggests the website coding to block the results has been rushed and not well thought-out.

It is unclear when exactlyDPRK Today made the changes to its search function, however it appears to be the only North Korean website to ban searches for 'Ju-ae' so far.

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Similar practice for previous North Korean leaders

Such censorship of the name 'Ju-ae' by state media follows similar practices introduced for her father Kim Jong-un and previous Supreme Leaders Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung. Indeed, as reported by NK News,searches for 'Kim Jong-un' in Korean on numerous North Korean propaganda sites in the past have produced similar error messages.

North Korean websites often use special code when mentioning the country's leaders to stop their names from being split by line breaks and to hide mouse cursors when they hover over photographs of the leaders. The ban on searching their names is what NK News describes as 'another aspect of this leadership cult' and it could be assumed that it aims to deter searches for them without using honourifics.

According to NK News, the ban on 'Ju-ae' suggests that Pyongyang is getting ready to confirm what the girl's name is and her honourifics, however it is unclear whether she will receive similar honourifics as Kim Jong-un.

Sources used:

NK News: 'North Korean website appears to block searches for Kim Jong Un’s daughter'