Yoon vows crackdown on deepfake porn as digital sex crime surges

Communication watchdog mulls ways to block spread of pornographic content via Telegram

President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a Cabinet meeting held at the Presidential Office on Tuesday. (Yonhap)

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday called for a thorough investigation and identification of digital sex crimes involving deepfake pornography, amid growing concerns over the rapid spread of sexually explicit content made using artificial intelligence.

“Recently, deepfake videos targeting an unspecified number of people have circulated rapidly on social media,” Yoon said at a Cabinet meeting.

“Anyone can be a victim of such digital sex crimes. I urge all authorities involved to thoroughly investigate and identify such crimes while also providing proper education measures to establish a healthy digital culture.”

Deepfake technology combines artificial intelligence with existing images or video to create media that can be nearly indistinguishable from real photos or videos, notably by mapping one face onto another.

Nationwide concern over deepfake pornography grew further after a chatroom on Telegram, active since 2020 with around 1,200 participants, was found last week to have been used to share sexually explicit images featuring digitally altered faces of more than 30 female students at Inha University in Incheon.

The participants of the chatroom also shared personal information of the victims, including associated phone numbers and addresses.

Since then, local media reported on more Telegram chatrooms connect to other university campuses, middle and high schools as well as military units, where perpetrators have posted photos of women they knew personally, which were then used to generate deepfake pornographic content.

The perpetrators in some chatrooms would share links to automatic programs with one another to generate the deepfake pornographic videos being shared within these groups, while in other chatrooms they would share the deepfake pornographic content with one another.

This composite image shows screenshots of Telegram chatrooms related to deepfake pornographic content. (Yonhap)

According to Yonhap News Agency, a search on Telemetrio, a platform that aids in searching Telegram chatrooms, showed more than 100 such channels to share and distribute such sexually explicit content. One Telegram deepfake channel, which was shown to have around 133,400 subscribers, received individual photos submitted by users to generate sexually explicit photos.

Other chatrooms, showing 1,800 and 3,500 active members, respectively, were also found on Telemetrio where users would share deepfake-generated photos and information about specific female students at their university.

Social media users have been circulating lists of locations and schools where victims had sexually explicit content generated with deepfake technology, though their veracity has yet to be confirmed. A post including the names and faces of alleged perpetrators has also begun to spread rapidly.

As a number of victims are also underage students, the Ministry of Education stated on Tuesday that it has sent out a notice to the 17 education offices across Korea asking them to check the status of any cases related to deepfake pornographic content in schools and to report them directly to the ministry.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said it was in the process of identifying such cases in cooperation with the Korean National Police Agency, while the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education sent a notice to parents urging students to be careful of exposing their personal information online and to be careful about posting or sending others’ personal information online without their consent.

In response to the rapid spread of sexually explicit content generated through deepfake technology, the Korea Communications Standards Commission said Tuesday that it decided to create a separate shortcut on its website dedicated to reporting deepfake pornographic content, which previously only had a shortcut available for reporting digital sex crimes.

Additionally, the commission plans to double the monitoring personnel to respond to the spread of such content in real time, while also establishing a communication hotline with Telegram to quickly communicate with the messaging service in order to react more quickly to such incidents.

During a press briefing on Tuesday, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo stated that the country must "firmly crack down on digital crimes, at the same level of the government's current crackdown on illegal drugs."

"Education about new digital technology and the dangers it poses to our society if misused must be taught. The government, media and civil society must work together to ensure that technological advancements are not abused," Han said.

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea also added that it will form a task force to respond to deepfake sex crimes and introduce regulations to strengthen the punishment of perpetrators.

Through an official statement released to the press on Tuesday, the main opposition party stated that Rep. Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party, called for "measures to protect the deepfake sex crime victims and stronger penalties for deepfake sexual content creators and distributors."

The KNPA added on Tuesday that it will conduct a seven-month special crackdown on digital sex crimes involving deepfakes to thoroughly track and arrest perpetrators involved in the production of deepfake pornography, from production to distribution. They will also actively support all investigations taken by metropolitan and provincial police agencies, such as assisting in analyses through deepfake detection software and cooperation with authorities overseas, if necessary. If the victims of the crime are identified as minors, police will respond more strictly, as that would constitute child and adolescent sexual exploitation.

Meanwhile, the KNPA reported that a total of 297 cases regarding deepfake sexual exploitation crimes were reported from January to July this year. Of 178 identified suspects, 131 were minors, accounting for 73.6 percent of the perpetrators.

At Monday’s press briefing, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it had received up to 10 reports regarding sexual exploitation on Telegram between January to July this year and arrested 10 minors aged 14 and up.

By Lee Jung-joo(lee.jungjoo@heraldcorp.com)