The move comes days after South Korean police announced they had launched an investigation into Telegram, accusing it of “inciting” the distribution of such images. In recent weeks, a large number of Telegram chatrooms, many of which were run by teenagers, were found to be creating sexually explicit “deepfakes” using doctored photos of young women.
Authorities say Telegram has since removed such videos from its platform. In a statement to South Korea’s Communications Standards Commission (KCSC), Telegram said the situation was “unfortunate,” adding that it “apologies if there was any element of misunderstanding.” He also confirmed that he downloaded 25 such videos, as requested by KCSC.
In its latest statement to the KCSC, Telegram also proposed an email address dedicated to future communication with the regulator. KCSC called the company’s approach “very proactive” and said Telegram “recognized the seriousness” of the situation.
Deepfakes are created using artificial intelligence and often combine the face of a real person with a fake body. The recent deepfake crisis was met with outrage in South Korea after journalists discovered that police were investigating deepfake pornography rings at two of the country’s largest universities.
It later emerged that police had received 118 reports of such videos in the past five days. Seven suspects, six of whom are teenagers, have been questioned by police over the past week. Chat groups were linked to individual schools and universities across the country. Many of their victims were students and teachers who were known to the perpetrators.
In South Korea, those found guilty of creating sexual deepfakes can be jailed for up to five years and fined up to 50 million won (€33,923).
In 2019, it was discovered that a sex trafficking ring had used the app to blackmail dozens of women and children into filming pornographic content. The leader of the ring, Cho Joo-Binwho was 20 at the time, was sentenced to 42 years in prison.
The investigation by the Seoul Police began after the arrest on August 28 in France of the head of Telegram, Pavel Durov. After four days in custody, billionaire Durov was released by French authorities under strict judicial supervision, under which he is required to report to a police station twice a week and is banned from leaving the country.
The French Justice is investigating Durov because he refused to cooperate with the authorities in their investigation against some Telegram users and because they consider him an accomplice, as an administrator of the platform, in some crimes allegedly committed through it.
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