Last Saturday, Hyejin (pseudonym) received a message on her mobile phone from an unknown person on the Telegram app: ‘Your photos and personal information have been leaked. Let’s talk about it.’
University student Heejin entered Telegram’s chat room as soon as she received a school photo of her from a few years ago. Some time later, he received the same photo again, the only difference being that this photo was sexual and fake.
Heejin was scared and didn’t reply to the sender of the photos, but the photos continued. In these images, using deepfake technology, his face was superimposed on bodies engaged in sexual activities.
Deepfake photos are mostly created with the help of artificial intelligence and the face of a real person is superimposed on a fake photo.
Describing what happened to her, Heijen told the BBC: ‘I was very scared. I felt so alone.’
But she was not really alone.
Two days ago, a South Korean journalist was published by Naran in a news that became the biggest news of his journalistic career. At the same time, there were reports that the police were investigating gangs using deepfake technology to create porn content in two major universities in the country.
After seeing these reports, Naran felt that there may be more such cases.
Ko Naran began scouring social media for more such cases, and soon came across dozens of chat groups on Telegram where users were sharing photos of women they knew and were being hacked by artificial intelligence software. were turning into fake pornographic images with the help of ware.
“Every minute people were sharing photos of girls they know and asking them to turn them into deepfake photos,” Ko Naran told the BBC.
Ko Naran learned that these chat groups were not only targeting university students, but there were also chat rooms that were reserved for a particular high school or middle school.
If DeepFake was creating multiple fake photos from a particular student’s photo, often a separate chat room was dedicated to that student’s fake photos.
These chat rooms were called ‘humiliation rooms’ or ‘friend of friend rooms’ and entry into these chat rooms was given under strict conditions.
This news published in Hankyorah newspaper caused a storm in South Korea. On Monday, police announced they were opening an investigation against Telegram, following France.
It should be noted that France has registered a case against the Russian founder of Telegram regarding the crimes committed on the mobile phone app.
South Korea’s president has vowed to severely punish those involved in deepfaking sexual images. He also said that there is a need to give better education to young men in the country.
In a message sent to the BBC in this regard, Telegram management says that they ‘proactively address harmful content on their platform and this content includes illegal pornography.’
‘We are angry and frustrated’
The BBC has read descriptions of several such chat rooms. In a chat room users are instructed to share at least four photos of any person along with their name, age and location information.
‘I was surprised at how organized the process was,’ says Ko Naran. The most terrifying group I ever saw was for young children in a school and the group numbered over two thousand members.’
After Ko Naran’s article was published, activists working for women’s rights began to dig into Telegram and found a lot of evidence.
By the end of this week, 500 schools and universities had been identified where students were being subjected to this heinous crime.
Since then, a large number of women in the country have deleted their photos from social media or suspended their accounts because they fear that they too may become victims of crime.
“We are angry and frustrated because we are having to change our mood and limit our social media activities, even when we have done nothing wrong,” said one university student. What?’
A student named Ah Yoon claims that one of his university students was told by the police not to pursue the case because it would be too difficult to catch those involved and ‘it’s not actually a crime’ because ‘the pictures were fake. ‘
Telegram has become central to this entire scandal. Other public websites are easily accessed by the police and often delete photos upon request, but this is a bit more difficult to do on Telegram as it is an encrypted messaging app.
Users on Telegram are often anonymous, chat rooms are often ‘secret’ and their content is often deleted. For all these reasons, the app has become a hotbed of criminal behavior.
Last week, politicians and the police reacted strongly and promised to investigate these crimes and bring the culprits to book.
On Monday, Seoul’s National Police Agency announced it was also investigating Telegram’s role in the distribution of fake child sex images.
Telegram founder Paul Douro was indicted in France last week for crimes related to his app, which is alleged to have been used to distribute child pornography.
Such a scandal has been seen in South Korea in the past. In 2019, it was revealed that a group was using Telegram to force women and children to create sexual images.
“They punished the main characters but completely ignored the situation and I think that made the situation worse,” Naran told the journalist.
Park Jae-hyun exposed the gang as a student journalist in 2019 and now speaks out for victims of such digital crimes.
He said that since the new deepfake scandal came to light, students and their parents have called me several times crying.
‘They saw their school’s name on a list on social media and now they are scared.’
Park Jae-hyun is calling on the government to either regulate or ban Telegram.
“If technology companies don’t cooperate with law enforcement agencies, the state should regulate them and protect its citizens,” he says.
Before this crisis, a South Korean organization ‘ACOSAV’ said that the number of young children affected by deepfake pornography had increased in the country.
This institution provided assistance to 86 victims of these crimes last year. In just eight months this year, the number of victims reached 238.
According to the organization, only last week, 64 young people have come to the scene who have been targeted by this crime.
Park Seung-hye, a leader of the organization, says, “For us, it has now become a full-time emergency, it is a war situation.”
He says that there have been several occasions when Telegram has deleted content from its platform at his request.
“It is not impossible,” he said, demanding the deletion of such content.
Telegram told the BBC in a statement that its moderators proactively monitor the app, use artificial intelligence and even delete content when users complain.
‘The root of this problem is sexual bias’
Women’s rights groups say AI-powered technology has made crimes against women easier, but they believe the crimes are part of South Korea’s misogynistic behavior. There is a link.
According to him, earlier women were abused on online platforms, then came the hidden cameras that made secret videos of women in changing rooms and bathrooms.
A group called 84 Women said in a statement that ‘the root of this problem is sexism and the only solution is gender equality.’
This is actually a direct criticism of South Korean President Yoon Seok-yul, who has denied the existence of systematic sexism in the country. He has also cut funding to support groups for victims and abolished a ministry set up to ensure gender equality.
Lee Myung-hwa, a counselor at the Aha Seoul Youth Cultural Center, says, ‘Deepfaking (creating photos and videos) has become a culture for young people, and now they see it as a game or a prank.’
He says educating young men is crucial and research shows that educating young men about their sexual misconduct changes their behavior.
On the other hand, the government says that they will increase the penalties against those who create and use deepfake photos.
A number of chat rooms on Telegram are now closed but will surely be replaced by new chat rooms. A ‘humiliation room’ has also been set up against journalists who had uncovered the chat rooms, which Naran says has given him sleepless nights.
‘I keep checking the chat room to see if my picture has been uploaded.’
Other young women and middle-aged girls are also suffering from similar problems. Ah Yoon, a university student, says that because of all this, she is also forced to look at the boys who study with her with suspicion.
‘Now I can’t believe that people won’t frame me for such crimes behind my back. I have become very cautious in my interactions with people, which is not a good thing.’
