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Screengrab via IndieGogo

Someone is trying to crowdfund $10M to overthrow North Korea

Who are Freedom Now, and what do they want?

 

Dylan Love

Tech

Posted on Jan 19, 2015   Updated on May 29, 2021, 5:54 pm CDT

The self-identified “covert” political organization Freedom Now is holding a very public crowdfunding campaign to raise $10,000,000 to wage a coup to overthrow Kim Jong-un and free the people of North Korea.

The campaign, conducted via Indiegogo, identifies its objective as being “to supply brave and willing North Korean defectors with the resources that they need to educate the North Korean people of the outside world and establish a safe communication network throughout the entire country.” There are but three difficulties preventing this liberation from happening more easily: “lack of an effective communication network,” “lack of rebel organization inside North Korea,” and most jarringly, “lack of hope.”

The project vaguely describes setting up a “communications network” inside the country, but doesn’t elaborate much at all on what that actually means. And as for what that $10 million will actually go toward, the campaign writeup says, unsatisfactorily: 

… the majority of these funds will be used to purchase communication technology and education materials for the pro-freedom resistance outside of North Korea. The remaining funds will be used to pay police and military bribes, intelligence gear, travel expenses, and for the logistics of establishing a communication network.

This seems dodgy through and through. 

The project creators have elected to create a “Satellite Phone” level pledge at $80,000, which was “created for members of the media” who want updates of the progress of the construction of the communication network.

There is a second Bitcoin-based campaign taking place in parallel.

Photo via Indiegogo

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*First Published: Jan 19, 2015, 3:53 pm CST