Explained: South Korea’s deepfake porn epidemic and its link to Telegram

South Korea is witnessing a public uproar after media reports of deepfake pornography targeting young women came to light. President Yoon Suk Yeol has as called on the authorities to “eradicate” the digital sex crime epidemic plaguing the country.

Local media reports have highlighted the use of the Telegram messaging app to create fake, sexually explicit images and videos of female students and teachers. The revelations come in the wake of the arrest of Pavel Durov , Russian-born founder of Telegram, in France on allegations that the encrypted messaging app failed to effectively combat child pornography, drug trafficking and fraud on the platform.

Let’s take a closer look.

South Korea’s deepfake porn crisis

South Korea is battling a flood of deepfake pornography targeting hundreds of women and girls – many of whom are minors.

Last week, a South Korean broadcaster reported students at a university were operating an illegal Telegram chatroom where they shared sexually explicit “deepfake” material of female colleagues, according to the AFP news agency.

Deepfake uses a type of artificial intelligence (AI) called deep learning to generate manipulated media – video, audio and photos. It usually combines the face of a person with the body of someone else.

One of the Telegram chatrooms was found to have 220,000 members who create and share deepfake images of women and girls, reported The Guardian.

South Korean media reports that the victims include university students, teachers and military personnel.

As per Yonhap, the Centre for Military Human Rights Korea, a counselling organisation, said, “The perpetrators have used photos of female soldiers in uniform to treat them solely as sexual objects.”

South Korea’s Hankyoreh newspaper revealed that Telegram channels were being used to make deepfake content targeting female university and high and middle school students.

Reports say perpetrators took pictures of the victims from social media platforms such as Instagram. As per BBC, anonymous users, mainly teenage students, submitted photos of teachers or their classmates on Telegram group chats, which were then converted by others into sexually explicit deepfake images.

Several of these groups were created using school names or regions to make it easier for users to discern mutual acquaintances and generate fake nudes to share, reported The Wall Street Journal.

As per an online tally compiled by volunteers who analysed the group chats, nearly 500 schools, including universities and elementary schools, may have been affected.

Reactions to the crime

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday ordered authorities to “thoroughly investigate and address these digital sex crimes to eradicate them”.

“Recently, deepfake videos targeting an unspecified number of people have been circulating rapidly on social media,” he reportedly told a cabinet meeting.

“Many victims are minors, and most perpetrators have also been identified as teenagers,” the president added.

Yoon said that to create a “healthy media culture”, young men needed to be better educated. “Although it is often dismissed as ‘just a prank,’ it is clearly a criminal act that exploits technology to hide behind the shield of anonymity," he said. “Anyone can be a victim."

President Yoon’s government is facing heat over the unearthing of a slew of deepfake porn.

“I don’t believe this government, which dismisses structural gender discrimination as mere ‘personal disputes’, can effectively address these issues,” Bae Bok-joo, a women’s rights activist and a former member of the minor Justice Party, told AFP.

Park Ji-hyun, a women’s rights activist and former interim leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, called on the government to declare a “national emergency” over South Korea’s deepfake porn crisis.

“Deepfake sexual abuse materials can be created in just one minute, and anyone can enter the chatroom without any verification process,” she wrote on Elon Musk-owned X. “Such incidents are occurring in middle schools, high schools, and universities across the country.”

The Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union said it had learned of sexual deepfakes involving school students and had urged the education ministry to investigate the matter, reported Reuters.

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What is the govt doing?

South Korean authorities have launched a probe into the digital sex crimes. They have asked Telegram and other social media platforms to delete and block sexually explicit deepfake content.

The Korea Communications Standards Commission said it will set up a 24-hour hotline for victims. It also plans to work with Telegram for direct and constant consultations to tackle the spread of faked pornographic images and videos.

As per Bloomberg, the regulator identified Telegram as the main source of distribution for deepfake content. The commission said it would also seek cooperation from X, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram and Google’s YouTube.

In a statement to Reuters, Telegram said it regularly moderates harmful content on its platform including illegal pornography. “Moderators use a combination of proactive monitoring of public parts of the platform, sophisticated AI tools and user reports in order to remove millions of pieces of harmful content each day,” the messaging app said.

The Korean National Police Agency has announced a seven-month campaign to crack down on online sex crimes.

South Korea’s dark past

Digital sex crimes have haunted South Korea for long. According to activists, the country is scourged by digital sex crimes, including spycams and revenge porn, reported AFP.

In 2019, it was discovered that Telegram was being used to blackmail dozens of young women, including teenagers, into performing sexual acts. In 2020, the leader of the notorious online sex abuse ring, Cho Ju-bin, was sentenced to 42 years in jail.

South Korean police say that online deepfake sex crimes have increased in the country. As many as 297 cases were reported in the first seven months of this year, a surge from 180 in the whole of 2023 and 160 in 2021.

As per the country’s police agency, of the 300 individuals accused of creating and sharing fake nudes since the beginning of 2023, roughly 70 per cent were teenagers.

Earlier, cases of women being filmed by “spycams”, or hidden cameras, in washrooms and changing rooms have also surfaced.

The Korea Communications Standards Commission have received over 6,400 requests for the removal of online sexually explicit deepfake content this year.

South Korean law punishes making sexually explicit deepfakes with the intent to distribute them by five years imprisonment or a fine of 50 million won (Rs 31,41,758).

With inputs from agencies