South Korean Teenagers Detained Over Deepfake Sexual Images

The authorities in South Korea are investigating a surge of sexually explicit images and video clips that have spread online and shocked the nation, leading the police to detain seven male suspects — six of them teenagers — the police said on Tuesday.

The South Korean authorities began investigating the images and videos late last month after local media reported the spread of the content, which was created using deepfake apps. Young men were said to be stealing social media images from female classmates, teachers and neighbors, and then using them to create the sexually explicit material before circulating them in chat rooms on the messaging app Telegram.

The crimes triggered a panic among many women in South Korea, and President Yoon Suk Yeol last week called on his government to root out digital sex abuse.

“Many of the victims are minors and most of the perpetrators are teenagers,” Mr. Yoon said last Tuesday during a cabinet meeting. “They may say that they created this as a ‘mere prank,’ but this is a clear criminal act that exploited technology behind the wall of anonymity.”

The investigation in South Korea followed the arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram’s Russian-born founder, by the French authorities last month. The authorities in France were investigating child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking and fraud on the encrypted messaging app. Mr. Durov was later charged with a range of crimes, including complicity in crimes such as enabling the distribution of child sexual abuse material.

The steep rise in deepfakes in South Korea made headlines in the country after reporters found Telegram channels on which female university, high and middle school students were among the victims.