South Korea's deepfake porn crisis

12 days ago

The Week Magazine

South Korea's police agency said that 297 cases of deepfake porn offences were reported in the first seven months of the year

South Korea deepfake crisis - Figure 1 — Photo The Week Magazine

(Image credit: Anthony Wallace / AFP via Getty Images)

published 4 September 2024

South Korea's National Police Agency is investigating Telegram after the messaging app was accused of "abetting" the distribution of deepfake pornographic material, including doctored images of teenagers.

The country faces an "epidemic" of the digital sex crime, said Human Rights Watch, with "hundreds of women and girls" having fake images shared in messenger channels that boast up to 220,000 members.

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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.