What is the New Nth Room and why is it trending in South Korea? Everything we know so far about deepfake Telegram chat rooms

The new Nth Room digital s*x crimes on Telegram have sent shockwaves through South Korea, where adult and underaged females have been targeted with deep fake p*rnography. According to BBC’s report on August 28, recently Telegram chat groups with a huge number of members were discovered where some users shared images of women and other members turned them into s*xually explicit images through deepfake technology with the use of Artificial Intelligence.

This Incident is trending online as it is referred to as the “new” or “second” Nth Room on Telegram among social media users, as it is not the first time South Korea has faced online sexual crimes.

In 2019, a group of men on the platform blackmailed and manipulated females to film s*xual content and share it with others, which was named the Nth Room case. The culprit behind this scandal, Cho Ju-bin was sentenced to 42 years in prison.

As per BBC, users on these group chats would share photos and images of people they know and others would edit it into s*xually explicit pictures. As per reports usually, these users are school-going students in their teenage years sharing pictures of their classmates and teachers.

The new Nth Room on Telegram (Image Via x/@womenleisure)

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The new Nth Room deepfake content: South Korean authorities’ plans, Telegram’s statement, and more

The new Nth room has outraged the public of South Korea as social media users online discovered the shocking chat rooms targeting females. This incident simultaneously took place with the arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram on Sunday, August 25. He is accused of not moderating the crimes occurring on the platform.

The new Nth room incident has garnered national and international criticism, as one of the Telegram chat rooms was reported to have 220,000 members, according to The Guardian. South Korean police said that over 297 cases have been reported in the first seven months of 2024 surrounding online sexual crimes.

According to BBC, the Korean Teachers Union speculates that over 200 schools have been targeted in the new Nth room incident. This is because usually the groups were named after the school to make it easier to find the chats and generate more such deep fake content as per the reports.

The new Nth Room on Telegram (Image Via x/@womenpostingws)

On Tuesday, August 28, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol briefed the authorities to,

“thoroughly investigate and address these digital sex crimes to eradicate them.”

In the cabinet meeting, he also stated,

“Recently, deepfake videos targeting an unspecified number of people have been circulating rapidly on social media. The victims are often minors and the perpetrators are mostly teenagers.”

According to Reuters, Telegram in a statement said that they moderate harmful content detected on the platform, including explicit content.

They said,

“Moderators use a combination of proactive monitoring of public parts of the platform, sophisticated AI tools and user reports in order to remove millions of pieces of harmful content each day.”

According to Reuters, on Wednesday, August 28, Korea Communications Standards Commission's (KCSC) chairperson Ryu Hee-Lim held an emergency meeting to take measures to tackle s*xual cyber crimes and to find a solution on how to eradicate them.

He stated,

“Production, possession and distribution of deep fake sex crime videos are a serious crime that destroys the individual dignity and personal rights.”

The authorities urge social media platforms to work in unity to block and delete deepfake s*xual content appearing online. According to KSCS, a 24-hour hotline for victims will be set up, furthermore, the number of regulatory personnel who monitor cybers*xual crimes will be doubled, which is currently 70.

The Korean National Police Agency is to make a 7-month push to solve online sex crimes.