Yonhap: South Korean police investigate whether Telegram facilitates sex crimes on the Internet

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean police have launched an investigation into Telegram to examine whether the encrypted messaging app was involved in spreading sexually explicit deepfake content, Yonhap news agency reported on Monday.

Yonhap quoted the head of the National Office of Investigation as saying that the cyber investigation bureau declined to comment on the report.

The launch of an investigation would follow public and political outrage over digital deepfake pornography featuring South Korean women. Local media reported that such content is often found in Telegram chatrooms.

This would go a step further than the comments made on Monday by Cho Ji-ho, commissioner of the National Policy Agency, who had previously stated that his agency was examining whether secure messaging apps should be investigated and accused of aiding and abetting crimes.

South Korean authorities last week announced a crackdown on sexually exploitative deepfake crimes – a move that came at the same time as a French investigation into Pavel Durov, the Russian-born founder of Telegram, as authorities there investigate organized crime on the platform.

When asked in parliament about criminal activities on Telegram, Cho said investigations into secure messaging providers had proven complicated and time-consuming.

Telegram did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Monday. Last week it said it actively moderates harmful content on its platform, including illegal pornography.

South Korea is the country most affected by deepfake pornography. According to a 2023 global deepfake report by Security Hero, a US startup specializing in identity theft protection, the country's singers and actresses account for 53% of the people depicted in such deepfakes.

The country's police say the number of deepfake sex crime cases they have handled so far this year has risen to 297. By comparison, in the whole of 2021, when the data was first collected, there were 156. Most of the victims and perpetrators are teenagers, it says.

In addition to urging social media companies to cooperate more actively in deleting and blocking such content, South Korea's media regulator has also asked French authorities to regularly cooperate on Telegram-related issues and facilitate direct communication with Telegram.

In addition, the South Korean government announced on Friday that it would push for stricter laws to criminalize the purchase or viewing of sexually exploitative deepfakes.

(Reporting by Jack Kim and Joyce Lee; Editing by Ed Davies and Edwina Gibbs)