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on august 30, multiple topics about "south korea's ai deep fake obscene images" sparked heated discussions among netizens.

many korean women received harassing messages from strangers. they did not know that their personal information such as name, phone number, school, home address, etc. had been spread in multiple chat rooms.

along with their personal information, their photos were also circulated. criminals made pornographic pictures of their photos for people in the chat room to watch.

these victims may be college students, nurses, teachers, or even primary school students, and the people who spread these messages may be acquaintances of the victims...

a female elementary school teacher told the reporter that her students told her that there were pornographic photos of her in a chat room. what made her upset was that the uploader was actually her student.

according to reports from multiple south korean media outlets, south korea has recently seen another scandal called "nth room." "deep fakes," which use ai to change faces to create pornographic images and spread them through social media platforms, have been widely exposed as sexual crimes.

after investigation by the south korean police and journalists, it was found that the "deep fake" crime, like the "nth room incident", sexually objectified women in specific professions. female soldiers, female teachers, and female nurses became targets of illegally synthesized pornographic images and videos, and groups such as "female teachers' room", "nurses' room", and "female soldiers" emerged.recently, "family rooms" and "close relative rooms" targeting female family members have been discovered one after another.

the woman who claimed to be korean even sought help and exposed the relevant incident on china's weibo.

“are you zhu huajing?”

1200 people have viewed her photo

in the spring of 2023, female college student zhu huajing received an anonymous text message saying, "someone on the social media 'telegram' is sharing your photos," followed by a chat room link.

after entering the chat room, she was shocked by the content.

"there were dozens of nude photos that looked like my photos. but i had never taken photos like that," zhu huajing said. "there were obscene words written on my face, mocking me for being a tool for men to play with even though i graduated from a prestigious university and had a good job."

those photos were synthesized through deep fake technology. someone also used ai software to generate an audio clip: "master, i am your slave."

zhu huajing listened to it several times and the voice sounded very similar to her own, but she knew it wasn't real.

in the chat room, you can use software to "take off" people's clothes.

the chat room was created in 2020 and has as many as 1,200 members. that is to say, at least 1,200 people have seen zhu huajing's photos. the criminals called zhu huajing by name in the group, just like her old friends, and she knew nothing about that group of people.

when zhu huajing thought about being watched by those criminals, she felt dizzy and nauseous. however, what happened next made her even more scared.

after someone found out she had been in the chat room, they began openly harassing her.

"i get 20 to 30 harassing calls a day, with people using obscene language and sending me text messages saying things like 'i saw you in the chat room' or 'are you sure the person in the photo is you'," zhu said.

her social media accounts were also flooded with private messages, and her chat software received many friend requests from strangers.

zhu huajing planned to deal with the harassment coldly, refused to answer all calls, and cancelled her social media accounts. but the group of people pressed her step by step, and someone synthesized photos of her friends, forcing her to comply, otherwise she would "let her friends suffer because of her."

zhu huajing, who was desperate, decided to call the police and handed over the information she had collected. soon, the police tracked down a male suspect based on the ip address of the person who posted the photo and arrested him.

the police told zhu huajing that the man attended the same university as her, that they had attended the same lectures and eaten in the same student cafeteria.

zhu huajing collapsed. "he knew everything about me, even the fact that he had passed by me. those 1,200 people were like this, but i had no idea..."

currently, the case is being tried in the first instance at the seoul central district court. on august 14, zhu huajing appeared in court and presented her experience to the judge as a victim.

she said: "maybe many people can't understand the harm that chat room has caused me. some people even think that i am making a big deal out of nothing. but i have to do this. i want to make these experiences public so that more people can understand how bad what that group of people did was and make more bad people pay the price!"

in one large chat room with more than 1,300 participants, there were numerous smaller individual chat rooms from dozens of universities in south korea.

deep fake pornographic video cases in south korea in the past three years

nearly 60% of the victims are minors

according to data obtained by yang funan, a member of the largest opposition democratic party, from the national police agency on the 30th, from 2021 to 2023, a total of 527 victims of deep fake pornographic images reported cases, of which minors accounted for 59.8%, much higher than those aged 20-29 (32.1%), 30-39 (5.3%) and 40-49 (1.1%). the proportion of minors dropped slightly from 64.6% in 2021 to 52.9% in 2022, and rose to 62% last year.

with the development of technology, it is more convenient to use deep fake technology to create fake videos, resulting in a significant increase in the proportion of minors among perpetrators. among the perpetrators suspected of making fake videos, those aged 10 to 19 accounted for 65.4% in 2021, slightly dropped to 61.2% in 2022, rebounded to 75.8% last year, and 73.6% from january to july this year.

file photo: screenshot of a group chat channel containing deep fake pornographic content on the social platform telegram

the operator of the so-called "acquaintance insult room" that used deepfake to create illegal synthetic videos and spread them on telegram has been handed over to the prosecutor's office for detention. the number of victims has reached 246.

the seoul metropolitan police agency's "deepfake and other fake videos intensive response task force" announced on the 30th that mr. a, a man in his 20s who opened and operated the telegram "acquaintance insult room", was urgently arrested on the 22nd and sent to the prosecutor's office for detention on the same day. also detained on the same charge was mr. b, a man in his 30s who operated an adult website for about four years. the prosecutor's office received more than 20,000 illegal sexual images, including sexual exploitation materials of children and teenagers.

the number of people involved may reach 220,000

according to the global times, on august 27, south korean president yoon seok-yeol said that deep fake images targeting unspecified groups have recently spread rapidly through social media, with many victims being minors and most perpetrators being in their teens. he said that relying on anonymity and malicious use of deep fake technology is a criminal act, and he hopes that relevant departments will completely eradicate this digital technology crime by understanding the actual situation and conducting investigations.

deep fake crimes targeting women are becoming increasingly rampant in south korea. such cases occur not only on university campuses, but also in primary and secondary schools, the military and other places. information about victimized schools and victims continues to leak on social media, especially in telegram groups.

on august 26, the women's association of korea released a report titled "220,000 participants in mass violence, how long will society collapse?", pointing out that in the "telegram" group, you only need to upload a photo of an acquaintance and pay to generate a nude composite image within 5 seconds. shockingly, the number of participants in this chat group is as high as 227,000. in the report, the women's association questioned: "(south korean) women live in a society that cannot effectively punish or prevent crimes and violence against women. they have lost their sense of security in their daily lives, as if they are living in a state without a country. is there any need for such a society to exist?"

faced with the spread of deep fake crimes, all sectors of south korean society have called on the government to take tougher measures.

the women and family committee of the national assembly of south korea said on the 27th that it will hold an emergency countermeasures meeting in september to discuss relevant solutions. a petition seeking public consent also appeared on the relevant website of the national assembly, demanding severe punishment for the perpetrators of sexual crimes on the "telegram" platform.

the frequent occurrence of "deep fake" crimes has caused public outrage.

south korea to step up crackdown

according to yonhap news agency on the 29th, the south korean government and the ruling national power party agreed on the same day to strengthen the crackdown on crimes using "deepfake" technology. the report said that a large number of fake and obscene images targeting young women have appeared on social media recently, sparking public anger in south korea.

according to yonhap news agency, a large number of groups suspected of sharing obscene images were recently found on the social media platform telegram. these obscene images were made through "deep fake" face-changing and targeted unspecified people. the victims included ordinary women and female soldiers. many of the victims and criminals were teenagers.

at an emergency meeting of the south korean national assembly on august 29th local time, the south korean government and the ruling party also decided to promote the establishment of a cooperation hotline with the operating company of telegram, and take legislative measures to crack down on the crime of producing "deep fake" pornographic content for the purpose of dissemination, and increase the relevant maximum penalty from the current 5 years to 7 years in prison.

kim sang-hoon, chairman of the policy committee of south korea's ruling people power party, said after the meeting that "('deep fake' pornographic content) is being widely spread through telegram, but international cooperation seems to be challenging because its servers are located overseas." he added that the south korean government will hold a meeting with the operators of telegram and seek to establish a hotline with the company to promote the establishment of regular consultations.

at the same time, south korea's national media watchdog, the korea communications commission, said that since telegram founder and ceo pavel durov has been arrested in france, south korea has urgently sent a letter to the french authorities asking for assistance in combating online pornography crimes.

han dong-hoon, leader of the people's power party, urged the government to take swift measures to curb such crimes and stressed the need to lower the age standard for minors to bear criminal responsibility. currently, under the south korean juvenile law, children between the ages of 10 and 14 are not criminally responsible for their actions and will not be sent to prison, but will be sent to juvenile detention centers or sentenced to community service.

it is reported that at this meeting, the south korean government and the ruling party also agreed to set up an inter-departmental working group to lead the fight against "deep fake" crimes.

south korea's ministry of defense said it was actively cooperating with the police investigation and taking measures to protect victims, such as providing counseling and accepting reports. a spokesman for the ministry said, "we are aware of the seriousness of the situation... we will also take various preventive measures, such as preventive education."

at a government cabinet meeting on august 27, south korean president yoon seok-yeol urged law enforcement agencies to step up efforts to combat digital sex crimes in order to crack down on "deep fake" content generated using artificial intelligence (ai) technology.