Infertile Korea: Teenage Boys Ruining the Lives of Fragile Women with Deepfake Porn

[Artaxerxes II]

https://apnews.com/article/south-korea- ... 8ec2366101

Three years after the 30-year-old South Korean woman received a barrage of online fake images that depicted her nude, she is still being treated for trauma. She struggles to talk with men. Using a mobile phone brings back the nightmare.

“It completely trampled me, even though it wasn’t a direct physical attack on my body,” she said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. She didn’t want her name revealed because of privacy concerns.

Many other South Korean women recently have come forward to share similar stories as South Korea grapples with a deluge of non-consensual, explicit deepfake videos and images that have become much more accessible and easier to create.

It was not until last week that parliament revised a law to make watching or possessing deepfake porn content illegal.

Most suspected perpetrators in South Korea are teenage boys. Observers say the boys target female friends, relatives and acquaintances — also mostly minors — as a prank, out of curiosity or misogyny. The attacks raise serious questions about school programs but also threaten to worsen an already troubled divide between men and women.

Deepfake porn in South Korea gained attention after unconfirmed lists of schools that had victims spread online in August. Many girls and women have hastily removed photos and videos from their Instagram, Facebook and other social media accounts. Thousands of young women have staged protests demanding stronger steps against deepfake porn. Politicians, academics and activists have held forums.

“Teenage (girls) must be feeling uneasy about whether their male classmates are okay. Their mutual trust has been completely shattered,” said Shin Kyung-ah, a sociology professor at South Korea’s Hallym University.

The school lists have not been formally verified, but officials including President Yoon Suk Yeol have confirmed a surge of explicit deepfake content on social media. Police have launched a seven-month crackdown.

Recent attention to the problem has coincided with France’s arrest in August of Pavel Durov, the founder of the messaging app Telegram, over allegations that his platform was used for illicit activities including the distribution of child sexual abuse. South Korea’s telecommunications and broadcast watchdog said Monday that Telegram has pledged to enforce a zero-tolerance policy on illegal deepfake content.

Police say they’ve detained 387 people over alleged deepfake crimes this year, more than 80% of them teenagers. Separately, the Education Ministry says about 800 students have informed authorities about intimate deepfake content involving them this year.

Experts say the true scale of deepfake porn in the country is far bigger.

“I feel scared of living as a woman in South Korea,” said Kim Haeun, a 17-year-old high school student who recently removed all her photos on Instagram. She said she feels awkward when talking with male friends and tries to distance herself from boys she doesn’t know well.

“Most sex crimes target women. And when they happen, I think we are often helpless,” she said.

[Fragment]

Distribution being penalized I can understand. Or using said porn for harassment.

Production for personal use, viewing and possession I don't see as problematic, though. "Cutting the head off one photo and sticking it over the head of a porn star" has only ever been a problem when done for harassment. Deepfakes should be treated the same.

[PorcelainLark]

I feel like there's an irrational fear of male sexual desire that's going unchallenged. You can draw a woman you know naked, or even picture them naked in your mind. No law can ever stop that. If people are uncomfortable with that, that's their own problem. That might sound harsh but it's like the story of King Canute and the tide. Men are going to have sexual desires regardless of whether women are comfortable with them.
I agree with Fragment, unless it's being used for harassment, it doesn't make sense to ban it.