Yeah, so the question is not whether north korean surveillance is bad,we agree on that. The question is what meaningful difference is there in the surveillance? The fact that the surveillance is legislated and lawfully conducted seems to be a rather technical distinction vs the situation corporations are simply unregulated and, by default, permitted to own any data they collect, even without consent.

The only material difference seems to be that, in North Korea, the state is (feels) so insecure that it has to monitor what people say. Wheras in the US, they don't care what people say because there's nothing they can do to challenge corporate power anyway.