North Korea appears to have added Facebook to other social networking sites it recently joined to ramp up its propaganda war against South Korea and the US.

The account opened late yesterday under the Korean username "uriminzokkiri, meaning "on our own as a nation," an official at South Korea's Communications Standards Commission said today.

The account opened hours after the commission blocked North Korea's 1-week-old Twitter account from being accessed in the South for containing information that is illegal under South Korean security laws, the official said.

North Korea's government-run website, Uriminzokkiri, announced last week that it has a Twitter account and a YouTube channel created in July.

The Twitter account, under the name uriminzok ("our nation" in Korean), gained more than 8,500 followers in a week though it posted just 30 tweets linking to reports praising North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and lambasting South Korea and the US over ongoing joint military drills.

Uriminzok has "content that praises, promotes and glorifies" North Korea that was confirmed to be "illegal information" under South Korea's National Security Law, a commission statement said yesterday. The commission said it has no immediate plan to block the North's YouTube channel.

A South Korean government warning saying "Illegal content" pops up when an attempt is made to access the Twitter account in South Korea.

Commission official Han Myung-ho said the new Facebook account could be subject to the same fate.

"We are aware of the Facebook account and the police and the National Intelligence Service are currently investigating the site to verify whether it is indeed run by the North Korean government," Han said today.