China Outraged Over Emoji Trading Featuring Sexual Messages in Children's Photos

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Controversy has arisen in China over the illegal trade of emoticons sexualizing photos of children.

According to Pengpai News on the 13th, recently, on Chinese e-commerce platforms, emoticons containing vulgar sexual phrases have been traded using photos of young children.

These photos include embarrassing phrases such as "Sleep with me," and "Honey, I took a shower."

Among them, a Korean child actor was also found to be included. The price of the emoticons varies depending on the children's expressions, and they are traded at 1.49 yuan (about 250 won) for 100 pieces.

A set of 520 emoticons of this Korean child actor is sold for 6.88 yuan (about 1,170 won).

An online seller stated that they have various sets of child emoticons and that monthly sales exceed 100 transactions.

The seller claimed that it is not illegal because "all were collected from the internet."

A lawyer in Beijing said, "Many netizens create emoticons using photos of child actors, so they easily spread on the internet," adding, "The reason operators choose foreign child actor emoticons is that the likelihood of the subjects finding out is much lower."

The problem is that these child emoticons are being used for sexual purposes on social networking services (SNS) such as WeChat (the Chinese version of KakaoTalk).

Chinese media analyzed that adults can disguise their lust as the cuteness of children.

A psychological counselor condemned the sexual commercialization of child photo emoticons, saying, "It is embarrassing to even talk about," and "Child pornography is problematic legally and morally no matter how it is disguised."

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