People don't believe native speakers of their own language when they're told things that conflict with their political world view. Why would they trust someone who says "that's not an accurate translation" if that collides with their political opinions?

For any outsider telling me about North Korea, including South Koreans, I can't tell if I've been pranked with e.g. the South Korean version of The Onion, let alone something milder like I'm being told about this by someone who takes their version Breitbart more seriously than their version of The Wall Street Journal.