The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has passed a bill to counter North Korea's censorship.
It also encourages sanctions on those who enable such a repressive information environment both in and outside of the country.
The bill, called the Otto Warmbier North Korea Censorship and Surveillance Act, is named after an American university student who was detained by the North in 2016.
He died in June 2017, just six days after being released.
If enacted, the bill requires the U.S. president to devise and submit to Congress a strategy on how to combat North Korea's repression of information.