Fear of deepfake porn chat rooms on Telegram targeting indiscriminate women grips nation

Numerous chat rooms on Telegram suspected of creating and distributing deepfake pornographic material with doctored photos of ordinary women have been discovered recently, stoking fear and outrage across the country.

Many victims in these chat rooms — one of which was found to have over 133,000 members — were believed to be minors, including middle and high school students, as well as university students, teachers and even military personnel.

Through reporting, Yonhap News Agency has learned of the existence of numerous chat rooms of such disturbing nature on Telegram categorized by different university names throughout the country.

According to a list of such chat rooms being circulated over Telegram and online communities, over 100 themed on individual university campuses have already been created online.

A search on Telemetrio, a platform that supports searching Telegram chat rooms, revealed one such channel which had over 3,500 members. A similar chat room with around 1,800 subscribers was also found.

Perpetrators reportedly used social media platforms, like Instagram, to illicitly save photos of victims, which were then used in their criminal activities.

Reportings also revealed links to bot programs that generate deepfake videos being shared within these groups.

One Telegram deepfake channel was shown to have around 133,400 subscribers.

In apparent reaction, online posts revealing the information of alleged perpetrators, including the names and photos of several men, have also circulated. The veracity of such claims, however, has not been verified.

Revelations of such chat rooms received public spotlight following the recent arrest of perpetrators who victimized students and graduates of Inha University in Incheon.

Police said they have launched an investigation into the incidents.

“It is very concerning that the videos have been created not only on students but teachers, and that it is spreading among the tech-savvy youth,” Kim Bong-sik, the chief of Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, said during a press conference Monday.

Fears and anxiety over possible victimization among women have spread fast online, with people advising each other to switch their social media profile to private or delete their photos.

At a high school in Gyeonggi Province, its student council posted a warning on its Instagram account, advising students to take down their photos, saying that “deepfake photos of our students are spreading on Telegram.”

An office worker in her 30s surnamed Kim shared the concerns, saying she went through her Instagram account and deleted all of her selfies after learning of such disturbing developments over the weekend.

According to the National Police Agency, 297 cases of deepfake sexual exploitation crimes were reported nationwide from January and July. Among 178 people charged, 73.6 percent, or 113 individuals, were known to be teenagers.