Associated Incidents
The authorities in South Korea are investigating a surge of sexually explicit images and video clips that have spread online and shocked the nation, leading the police to detain seven male suspects --- six of them teenagers --- the police said on Tuesday.
The South Korean authorities began investigating the images and videos late last month after local media reported the spread of the content, which was created using deepfake apps. Young men were said to be stealing social media images from female classmates, teachers and neighbors, and then using them to create the sexually explicit material before circulating them in chat rooms on the messaging app Telegram.
The crimes triggered a panic among many women in South Korea, and President Yoon Suk Yeol last week called on his government to root out digital sex abuse.
"Many of the victims are minors and most of the perpetrators are teenagers," Mr. Yoon said last Tuesday during a cabinet meeting. "They may say that they created this as a 'mere prank,' but this is a clear criminal act that exploited technology behind the wall of anonymity."
The investigation in South Korea followed the arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram's Russian-born founder, by the French authorities last month. The authorities in France were investigating child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking and fraud on the encrypted messaging app. Mr. Durov was later charged with a range of crimes, including complicity in crimes such as enabling the distribution of child sexual abuse material.
The steep rise in deepfakes in South Korea made headlines in the country after reporters found Telegram channels on which female university, high and middle school students were among the victims.
"Telegram has been actively removing content reported from Korea that breached its terms of service and will continue to do so," the company said in a statement.
Last week, 118 cases of suspected deepfake sexual crimes were reported, resulting in the detention of the seven male suspects, the police said Tuesday. The police have not yet charged any of those who have been detained.
Under South Korean law, people convicted of making sexually explicit deepfakes with the intention to distribute them face punishments of up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million won, or $37,000. Women's rights groups have called for new legislation to punish those who possess and watch such materials.
Most of the people involved in the production and spread of the imagery --- as well as many of the victims --- are in their teens, according to data compiled by the Korean National Police Agency. Of the 178 people identified by the agency as criminal suspects in the first seven months of the year, 131 were teenagers, the police said.
The number of suspects was expected to increase as more people reported cases of deepfake sexual violence.
South Korea has struggled with digital sex crimes in recent years. In 2020, Cho Joo-bin, the mastermind of a digital sex crime ring, was sentenced to 40 years in prison on charges of luring young women, including teenagers, into making videos that he sold online through encrypted chat rooms on Telegram.
This year, South Korea has reported a surge in online deepfake sex crimes. Between January and July, 297 cases were reported, almost three times the number reported in the same period last year, according to the police.