South Korean president calls spread of deepfake porn a "national emergency"

South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol recently called for a greater crackdown on digital sex crimes, saying the country is facing an emergency over "deepfake" porn. In recent years, digital sex crimes in South Korea have been increasing, including a surge in "deepfake" porn generated using artificial intelligence technology, with many young women and even minors among the victims.

"Deepfake" refers to the use of artificial intelligence technology to combine real faces with fake bodies to generate fake images or videos. In South Korea, a large number of chat groups have recently been found to be used to produce and spread such sexually exploitative content, especially in some middle schools and universities.

"Recently, deepfake videos targeting unspecified groups have spread rapidly on social media," South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol said at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. He stressed that these victims are often minors, while the perpetrators are mostly teenagers.

It is reported that these chat groups mainly appear on the social media app Telegram, and most of the users are middle school and college students. They will upload photos of people they know - including classmates and teachers - and then other users will make these photos into sexually suggestive DeepFake pictures. These images involve not only minors, but also other educators such as teachers.

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Data from the National Police Agency of South Korea show that the number of online DeepFake sex crimes has risen sharply: a total of 297 cases were reported in the first seven months of this year, compared with only 180 cases in the whole of last year and only 160 cases in 2021. Data show that teenagers accounted for more than two-thirds of criminal cases in the past three years.

The Korean Teachers' Union said that more than 200 schools have been affected by this series of incidents recently. Data from the Korean Ministry of Education show that DeepFake attacks on teachers have increased rapidly in the past few years.

South Korea's digital sex crime problem South Korea has been facing a serious problem of digital sex crimes. In 2019, the "Enhao Room" incident was exposed, in which some men used Telegram chat rooms to blackmail dozens of young women for sex transactions. The mastermind of the incident, Cho Ju-bin, was eventually sentenced to 42 years in prison. Since then, the number of online sex crimes, especially deep fake sex crimes, has continued to rise.

President Yoon Seok-yeol called for a thorough investigation and handling of these digital sex crimes in the hope of "eradicating" them. "While this is often seen as 'just a prank', it is clearly a crime committed using technology, hidden behind a shield of anonymity," Yoon said.

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South Korea's media regulator plans to hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss how to respond to the crisis. However, opponents of the government question its ability to respond. "I don't believe this government can effectively solve these problems because it treats structural gender discrimination as a 'personal dispute'," women's rights activist Bae Bok-joo told AFP.

Before taking office, Yoon Boo-kang said that Korean women did not suffer from "systemic gender discrimination", a statement that sparked widespread controversy. Data shows that women account for only 5.8% of executives in public companies in South Korea, and their average salary is one-third lower than that of men, making it the richest country in the world with the largest gender pay gap.

In recent years, the rapid development of South Korea's technology industry has fueled an explosion in digital sex crimes. This includes not only deep fake sex crimes, but also cases of secretly filming women in toilets, dressing rooms and other places through tiny hidden cameras. This behavior, known as "sneak camming", is also rampant in South Korea.

As the problem of deep fake pornography worsens, calls from all walks of life are getting stronger. Women's rights activist Park Ji-hyun called on the government to immediately declare a "national emergency" and take more stringent measures to deal with the problem.

She wrote on social media X (formerly Twitter) that "deep fake sexual abuse materials can be generated in just one minute, and anyone can enter the chat room without any verification process." She pointed out that this situation has occurred frequently in middle schools, high schools and universities across the country, seriously threatening the safety of teenagers and children.