memes

This argument doesn't really work because it's not like North Korea's own claims are taken as anything other than "the North Korean government alleges . . ." by Wikipedia, whereas SK government sources and so on can get by much more easily (despite their cottage industry of professional defectors making ludicrous claims). I'm obviously not saying claims from SK should be thrown out just because either, but simply that both should be interrogated.

But beyond that, there are many other things you can look at than just "he said, she said", because consensus on many facts exists and so does documented evidence. There is actually something to be said for pursuing epistemic rigor, it's not like everything is just a matter of faith, of dogmatically trusting one side and distrusting the other based on arbitrary whims.

There's basically one case on the website where I know of a real effort to interrogate these accusations in something like good faith, which is part of the article on Yeonmi Park, and honestly I think that's just because, as other defectors have commented, her bullshit rhetorically delegitimizes the rest of them and makes the whole thing look overtly unserious.