Stop digital character assassination

The country’s top school, Seoul National University (SNU), has been implicated in an upgraded case of the “Nth Room” scandal, which involved the infamous chat room where illicit sexual contents were shared and distributed via the encrypted messaging app Telegram in 2020.

Two SNU male graduates were arrested for creating and distributing deepfake-based sexually exploitive content of SNU female students and graduates by using their photos and social media content. Deepfake is a serious crime to humanity that exploits face and image swap technologies to produce fake materials. The government must toughen its investigation and punishment on digital character assassination, and find effective ways to prevent such shameless crimes in the future.

The latest crimes have been committed for quite a lengthy period. A 40-year-old SNU graduate victimized 48 female SNU graduates from July 2021 to last month, and another 30-something SNU graduate victimized 28 female graduates from April 2021 through November 2022. But they were not caught for their crimes which lasted nearly three years.

The two alumni of SNU reportedly communicated through Telegram without meeting one another. It is shocking that the alumni of a prestigious university used their school connections to exploit female students from their school. The police also caught three accomplices who downloaded and shared the illicit materials. Police officers are chasing additional predators involved in the case.

Regrettably, however, the police’s early response was sloppy. Some victims filed complaints with four police stations after finding that they became victims of the crime, but the police turned down all the complaints, citing difficulties of tracing the two suspects. The case was picked up only after the cyber investigation team at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency was ordered to investigate the case by the National Office of Investigation under the National Police Agency. If law enforcement authorities had moved faster through the involvement of the cyber investigation team, victims could have been saved from further suffering.

Digital sex crimes spread secretly through underground means. Investigation methods, regulations and punishment have been strengthened since the breakout of the Nth Room case three years ago, but this recent case suggests that we have a long way to go until fixing the loopholes. Above all, the authorities must take extra care for the victims not to suffer secondary damages, and predators must be caught to face their due punishment. The government must send a clear message that anyone committing such despicable sex crime will be found and receive grave punishments.