hankyoreh

Deepfake Telegram channel created on the morning of Aug. 27, 2024. The bolded text includes names of regions and cities, as well as a “younger sister, older sister” chat room and those for certain college majors. (screenshot of Telegram)

Amid continued revelations of the proliferation of illegal pornography that employs AI deepfake technology on platforms like Telegram, Korean authorities have vowed to respond with force to punish the responsible parties. Yet the perpetrators have simply upped their game by fortifying their chat rooms with additional “verification” processes for members, going further underground and deeper into the dark web. 

Critics are blaming the state’s lax policies and punishments pertaining to sex crimes, claiming that the actions of the deepfake perpetrators are a “learned response.” 

When the Hankyoreh investigated one of the Telegram chat rooms for distributing illegal deepfakes on Thursday, there was evidence that the chatroom’s operators had simply created a new private channel, providing links where users could “apply” to become members of the new channel, continuing their nefarious activities through new methods. 

Despite statements from government officials and politicians vowing to crack down on such crimes, the criminals are simply making it more difficult to track them down through additional security and verification measures.

The 1,300-member Telegram channel for sharing deepfake pornographic images, which had subchannels dedicated to victims from 70 universities nationwide, was made private after the Hankyoreh’s report on Aug. 22.

 
However, many channels sharing explicit deepfakes still exist or have been newly created.  Conversations explaining that only those close to the channel moderators could be invited to a “high-level” room could be seen taking place within those channels. This suggests that private rooms are being formed, as the term “high-level” indicates that there is a channel sharing heavily explicit pornographic images with stricter entry requirements.

Messages asking to be added to a “friends of friends” room on Telegram. (screenshot of Telegram)

 
One user wrote, “If you’re super active in this channel, I’ll invite you to the private high-level room,” disclosing the fact that the room in question had 160,000 participants and encouraging those in the channel to ramp up their objectification of women.
 
Some users even asked for money in exchange for invitations to the primary room saying, “If anyone wants the link to the invitation-only chat room, contact me.”

Some users are requiring that those wanting to be admitted to higher-level rooms “prove themselves” by posting a photo of an acquaintance from their social media, writing something sexually degrading about a victim, or verifying their identity via their banking number. The latter is “a procedure meant to confirm you’re not a cop or a reporter.”

“I need to verify people by sending 1 won to your account and having you tell me the name on the account that sent it,” a message said. 

Channels dedicated to mocking the social uproar and concerns about deepfakes have also begun to appear. A deepfake-sharing channel that appeared early in the morning on Tuesday with the message “Don’t be a coward. Sexually harass the reporters writing the articles too” attracted around 2,700 members in the span of a single day. 

A message in a chat room for sharing illegal deepfake pornography says that the user will admit members to a “higher-level” room if they upload a lot of deepfakes of their acquaintances. (screenshot of Telegram)

The channel that featured a bot for producing deepfakes that had around 220,000 members as of the Hankyoreh’s reporting on Aug. 22, has also seen membership rise to above 400,0000 as of Thursday. 

Profiler Bae Sang-hoon interpreted the behavior as “by provoking authorities, they are seeking to establish themselves as something even more impressive.”

At the same time, experts say that perpetrators are continuing to inflict harm with such brazenness because Korea failed to nip digital sex crimes in the bud when earlier incidents occurred.

“The government, investigative authorities, and the courts gave heavy sentences to a handful of the ringleaders in the Nth Room case and then acted like their work was done. That’s the issue,” said Heo Min-sook, a legislative researcher at the National Assembly Research Service. 

“We needed to bring in the newest technology, the newest investigative methods or at least international cooperation, but there’s still been no effort to supplement the current system,” she said. 

By Ko Na-rin, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]