Probably shouldn't have mentioned my thoughts on that thread, I had hoped to provide some perspective on where I was coming from but probably just confused things for everyone. That's my bad, back to the relevant point:

How do you think one should make that distinction?

Can I not talk about a pitfall that I often see with people defending NK, as an “inb4” if you will? Because I hope you reread the sentence that way.

The problem is that even if there are people like that, the criticism gets directed at people with much milder takes. And in this case, you replied to someone with .ml saying "why do .ml's..." and "y'all..." You were clearly including them, even though all they'd done was to identify some things that are objectively misinformation.

Why so eager to jump in like that about a known violator of human rights that has voiced unconditional support for Russia, a country actively picking a fight with the entire West side of the world?

Because of... the truth? Does being a "known violator of human rights" make it ok for people to spread lies? Does it make someone a bad person to refute things that are objectively false? At that point, how could we even determine if anything said about them is true, if their critics are happy to lie, and to attack anyone who calls out lies?

I don't care who you're talking about, whether it's North Korea, Iran, Trump, fucking, Nazi Germany, whatever, if people say false things about them, then I'm going to correct those falsehoods. There's this whole social disease that correcting misinformation about something inherently means you support it. If someone says "In North Korea, they kill you for having the wrong haircut" and you say, "No, they don't," then congratulations, you are now "defending North Korea," you are now a "North Korea apologist," or, as some would say, a "tankie." And then you ask why there's so many "North Korea apologists."

Some of us value truth and integrity more than we value bashing whoever the news tells us to hate. And because we have the audacity to interrupt the whole Orwellian "Five Minutes Hate" thing, that makes us traitors if not foreign agents or bots.

If North Korea is my "enemy," it's certainly a very small and distant one that's not really worth messing with. Speaking as an American, my biggest existential threats are all domestic, like the rise of fascism and exploitation by the rich. I can see no reason why I would support my domestic enemies meddling in the affairs of other countries for their own benefit, and if I don't support my government taking hostile action towards North Korea, then there's pretty much fuck-all I could do about it in any case, is there? So what difference does it even make what anybody's stance is on it, what's the big deal if some people take it too far? The only relevant question with North Korea is "Should our government fuck with them or not" and the answer is obviously "not."