I would bet a guess that privacy in NK is actually better when you're purely looking at a digital point of view.
After all, many people there won't have access to such technology. They'll be off the grid unlike most of us.
Of course that doesn't actually give them privacy, I'm sure that there's plenty of 'friendly' neighbours spying on each other for a few bucks, basically stasi style.
And also this watermarking isn't all that different from our browser fingerprinting and mega data collection. It's just a cultural difference. The NK government wants their citizens to know they're being spied on. Whereas ours is trying to hide it. Thus more focus on the endpoint device rather than the cloud side.
On the other hand, how many styles of haircut are you legally allowed in the USA? Can you leave if you want to? Can you criticise the government without you and your family being shot?
Never mind Apples and Oranges, you’re comparing a rabid kitten (NK: you don’t want to be a cell inside it, but the animal is containable) with a healthy chimpanzee in the jungle you’re walking though (USA: violent and acts like it owns the place, so being one of its cells is safer than being a cell in many of the things around it).
After all, many people there won't have access to such technology. They'll be off the grid unlike most of us.
Of course that doesn't actually give them privacy, I'm sure that there's plenty of 'friendly' neighbours spying on each other for a few bucks, basically stasi style.
And also this watermarking isn't all that different from our browser fingerprinting and mega data collection. It's just a cultural difference. The NK government wants their citizens to know they're being spied on. Whereas ours is trying to hide it. Thus more focus on the endpoint device rather than the cloud side.