S Korea must ‘eradicate’ deepfake porn crimes, says president

SEOUL: South Korea´s president called on Tuesday for an investigation into deepfake porn after media reports that Telegram chatrooms were sharing explicit images of minors at schools and universities sparked public outrage.

South Korea has the world´s fastest average internet speeds but activists say it also has an acute epidemic of digital sex crimes, including spycams and revenge porn, with inadequate legislation to punish offenders.

A South Korean broadcaster reported last week that students at a university were running an illegal Telegram chatroom, sharing deepfake pornographic material of female colleagues, one of a slew of high-profile cases that has triggered public anger.

“Recently, deepfake videos targeting unspecified individuals have been rapidly spreading through social media,” President Yoon Suk Yeol told a cabinet meeting, according to his office.

“Many victims are minors, and most perpetrators have also been identified as teenagers,” he said.

Yoon called for authorities to “thoroughly investigate and address these digital sex crimes to eradicate them completely”.

Perpetrators reportedly used social media platforms such as Instagram to save or screen-capture photos of victims, which were then used to create deepfake pornographic materials.

“The biggest issue with online sexual abuse is that their deletion is extremely difficult. Victims often suffer without even being aware of it,” Bae Bok-joo, a women´s rights activist and a former member of the minor Justice Party said.