Over 10,000 Cases of 'n번방' Similar Digital Sex Crimes This Year Alone... Rapid Increase

Rapid Increase in Telegram N-Banbang-Like Digital Sex Crimes
Over 5,000 Cases Reviewed by KCSC in January and February
7,000 Cases Requested for Self-Regulation on YouTube, Instagram by March
Many Contents Involving Minors, Child Sexual Exploitation, and 'Jiin Neungyok'

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] It has been revealed that 12,000 cases of digital sex crime videos and photos, similar to the Telegram 'Nth Room' case, were detected and blocked or regulated throughout this year. Sex exploitation content spread through overseas SNS accounts such as YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, which received regulation requests, also reached 7,000 cases.

According to the Korea Communications Standards Commission on the 24th, the total number of digital sex crime information reviewed by the commission until March this year amounted to 12,536 cases (including voluntary regulation cases by overseas operators; domestic site reviews are counted until February).

Among these, 5,224 cases were identified on domestic sites, reviewed, and then access was blocked. Including 2 deletion cases, the total is 5,226 cases. This means that approximately 2,500 cases of sex exploitation materials are uploaded and spread on the web monthly.

Among these are many contents that sexually exploit minors or children or engage in so-called 'Ji-in Neung-yok' (defamation of acquaintances) through synthesis.

The remaining 7,310 cases involved cooperation requests to overseas operators. For example, cases where photos of minors' faces were synthesized with obscene materials and uploaded to YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. In just three months, the number of voluntary regulation requests reached 70% of last year's total of 10,119 cases.

Due to this situation, the number of reports and self-review cases is also increasing. The number of digital sex crime information reviews, which was only 3,768 cases in 2015, surged to 7,356 cases in 2016, 17,486 cases in 2018, and 25,992 cases in 2019. A commission official stated, "Following the Telegram Nth Room incident, we are fully committed to reviews and corrective actions," adding, "We will strengthen the monitoring system to prevent the spread of sex exploitation content."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.