South Korea is experiencing a massive scandal where reports have been coming out of Telegram chatrooms circulating pornographic deepfake videos of hundreds of women including female students, minors, military personnel, and even female family members.
South Korean Police have recently reported an increase in online deepfake sex crimes, where in the first seven months of this year itself 297 such cases were reported. This is a surge from the 180 reported last year and almost double the numbers recorded in 2021 when the country began data collection on this crime.
According to reports, authorities believe that most of the suspects involved in this crime are teenagers or individuals in their twenties.
What Is Happening In South Korea
Over the past week, reports have been coming up of Telegram, a social media chat app, having chatrooms where inappropriate and sexual deepfakes of females across the age brackets are being circulated.
The users, mostly teenage students, would upload photos of women they know including classmates, teachers and others, which would then be morphed into sexually explicit deepfake images.
The ‘Hankyoreh’ newspaper was reportedly among the first to get major attention for their report on this issue, where they claimed that deepfake videos of female students from all sectors, including university, high school, and middle school were being shared on Telegram channels.
The Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union has also reportedly been made aware of cases where school students have been victims of sexual deepfakes.
Not just this, but as per the Military Sexual Abuse Victim Support Center, which assists victims of sexual abuse in the military, sexually graphic deepfakes of female military personnel were also found in these Telegram chatrooms.
The Korean Teachers Union has reportedly said that over 200 schools are believed to be a part of these latest incidents. The Ministry of Education claimed that deepfakes of school teachers have also seen a disturbing surge in the last few years.
Park Ji-hyun, a women’s rights activist and former interim leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, on her X/Twitter profile, said, “Deepfake sexual abuse materials can be created in just one minute, and anyone can enter the chatroom without any verification process,” and how “Such incidents are occurring in middle schools, high schools, and universities across the country.”
In a 22nd August report, Hankyoreh reported how illegal deepfake pornography is being circulated through Telegram chatrooms. As per the report, the process involves potential members being scouted through a Telegram chatroom called “friends of friends”, they are then divided according to their region of residence and university.
Members in this chat talk about girls and women, see if they are recognised in a large number, and then create illegal pornographic deepfakes of victims using photos taken from their social media.
Reportedly, one Telegram chat has over 1,300 members, another channel called “Link Sharing Space” has over 3,700 members, and another channel that specifically shared deepfakes of middle—and high-school students has over 2,340 members, as per Hanokyoreh.
The report also said, “Some chat rooms even have selection processes, where applicants must submit 10 photos of someone they know and pass an interview before being allowed in.”
The whole process is so detailed and systematic, with pockets being created of different groups. These people require different sorts of deepfakes, divided into regions, universities, and interviews being held which is most alarming.
According to the Hankyoreh report, the Korean women’s rights group Womenlink released a statement stating, “There are around 227,000 members of a Telegram channel that allows people to obtain sexually explicit images of their acquaintances in five seconds simply by sending a photo and paying a fee.”
The group also called South Korea a “broken society which has spawned over 220,000 perpetrators of sexual violence”, asking “how long Korea will ignore the abysmal state of affairs.”
It further wrote, “The sheer number of people participating in the channel shows that the problem is bigger than the specific individuals who joined those channels to create and consume illegal content.”
The group also said “Korean women live in a society where crimes and violence targeting them are neither punished nor prevented, therefore forcing them to spend their everyday lives with a sense of dread. They are left living without a state, without the protection that the country ought to provide.”
“Can a society in which the safety of so many of its members is threatened daily, which tolerates and encourages the collective acts of insulting and disparaging of fellow citizens, continue to exist? More importantly, should it?”
These channels were also found to be easily found through a simple search online. Hankyoreh did a sting investigation into a Telegram channel with over 220,000 and on entering the channel was asked to “upload a photograph of a woman you like” through a pop-up message.
When they uploaded the photographs, an “AI-generated photograph of a woman and within five seconds, the channel generated a nude deepfake of that photograph.”
The channel also allows two deepfake nudes for free; however, it charges one “diamond” — a type of in-channel currency in Telegram equal to the US dollar – $0.49, or about 650 won. Only cryptocurrency is allowed as a payment form.
Kim Hye-jung, the director of the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center said, “The fact that there’s a profit structure suggests that there’s a high level of demand.”
Hankyoreh was also informed by a source that since 8th August a Telegram channel operated by 20 people and having an audience of at least 850 has been sharing deepfake nude images of female soldiers.
So far 30 women serving in Korea’s Army, Navy, and Air Force are said to have been victims of this, with the channel even insulting female soldiers calling them “military supplies,” and “requests that members send in the names of servicewomen, their ranks, telephone numbers, Instagram handles, ages, photographs of them in uniform and from their daily lives to create photos, in addition to sexually degrading comments.”
The images were also made into emoticons and used by members of the channel, further belittling female soldiers. The issue might be more serious than thought since even headshots and official ID photos of the soldiers are being used, which can only be accessed through the military intranet.
Kim Suk-kyeong, the director of the Center for Military Human Rights Korea’s sexual violence counselling centre, speaking with Hankyoreh said, “This information can only be accessed by military officials and non-commissioned officers, but sometimes soldiers with administrative jobs are given access to proceed with certain tasks. If the military is willing, it will be possible to identify the perpetrators by combing through the military intranet’s access records.”
What Was The Nth Room Case?
The Nth Room case was a shocking and controversial incident that occurred amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, news broke out about how more than 70 women, including minor girls, were being blackmailed into sending videos of themselves performing grotesque sexual acts and self-harm as part of a big sexual abuse ring.
The videos would then be posted on Telegram chatrooms, which had over 200,000 men in them.
Hankyoreh broke the news first in 2019 and more reports came in after, that described what horrifying acts the women had to do.
The term ‘Nth Room’ comes from the name of the Telegram chatrooms where these videos were being circulated. The women were lured in with offers of part-time jobs, gift certificates, and more and then forced into making graphic pornographic videos of themselves and sharing them.
Cho Ju-bin, considered to be the mastermind of the ring was sentenced to 40 years in prison for forcefully blackmailing around 74 women, including 16 teenagers to share extremely offensive and occasionally violent sexual images of themselves.
Read More: ED Vox Pop: We Ask If Rapist Should Be Given Death Penalty In RG Kar Kolkata Rape- Murder Case
How Are Korean Feminists Reacting?
South Korean women, feminists and even international people have been rising in anger against this. Many have called out the disturbing nature of this, others have said how this is much more widespread than thought while several users also called out Korean media for not covering this properly.
One user who has been posting about this incident on her X/Twitter page has also been getting threats and has had her personal information shared on platforms where men have been accessing it.
https://twitter.com/dvu84djp/status/1827725652276969627
https://twitter.com/f_c_1050/status/1827314050344394862
Korea gets taken by the Telegram Deepfake and s*x crime storm
– Woman speaking up on their experience being SA-ed
– Korea ranking #1 in DF crimes worldwide
– Korean school reprimanding female students to be more "cautious"https://t.co/y1jncNkMh2 pic.twitter.com/mb7MWh94EU— Not Pannchoa (@notpannchoa) August 27, 2024
What Are South Korean Politicians Doing?
South Korean government after intense backlash, not just from South Korean women but also internationally, has jumped into damage control mode.
Representative Han Jeong Ae of the Democratic Party of Korea has introduced a bill that would amend the “Special Act on the Punishment of Sexual Violence Crimes”, and penalise individuals who purchase, store, possess, or view sexually exploitative and/or compromising content made from deepfake technology.
As per South Korean laws right now, the only ones who would get punished in regards to sexually exploitative content taken against the will of the person(s) being photographed/videographed would be those who produce, edit, and/or distribute it, however, it did not include people who have the content, downloaded them, or viewed them.
The current Sexual Violence Prevention and Victims Protection Act in South Korea charges individuals who make sexually explicit deepfakes intending to distribute them either with 5 years in jail or a 50 million won ($37,500) fine.
The amendment by Representative Han would penalise individuals who possess, purchase, store, or view deepfake content with a jail term of up to two years and/or a fine of up to KRW 20.0 million (about INR 12,58,629).
Speaking with media Representative Han said, “The current regulations against sexual violence crimes lack specific clauses for penalizing those who consume deepfake content fabricated for sexual exploitation. While deepfake technology becomes more common, the regulations have failed to keep pace with the development. This bill addresses that legislative gap.”
South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol has also condemned the incident and demanded that a thorough investigation be carried out into digital sex crimes.
During a televised cabinet meeting, President Yoon said, “It’s an exploitation of technology while relying on the protection of anonymity. It’s a clear criminal act,” although he didn’t mention Telegram by name.
Bae Bok-joo, a women’s rights activist and a former member of the Minor Justice Party, speaking with AFP News, however, said, “I don’t believe this government, which dismisses structural gender discrimination as mere ‘personal disputes’, can effectively address these issues.”
Telegram’s Russian-born founder, Pavel Durov, was also recently arrested as part of a French investigation into child pornography, drug trafficking, and fraud on the encrypted messaging app as per reports.
Image Credits: Google Images
Feature Image designed by Saudamini Seth
Sources: Reuters, Hankyoreh, The Korea Herald
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: South Korea, deepfakes, deepfake nudes, AI-generated content, child protection, sexual exploitation, sexual exploitation ai, sexual exploitation artificial intelligence, AI technologies, deepake scandal, Social media, Asia, South Korean women, South Korean feminists, women’s rights, deepfake south korea, south korea deepfake porn, deepfake pornography
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