Telegram partners with South Korea against deepfake porn: regulators | News

South Korean regulators on Monday welcomed productive talks with messaging app Telegram over a deepfake porn crisis in the country.

In August, media and authorities in South Korea uncovered a sprawling network of Telegram chat rooms, often set up in schools and universities, where users shared AI-generated deepfake porn depicting female students and staff.

The revelations sparked public outrage, the president promised tough action, and lawmakers have recently taken steps to criminalize owning or viewing deepfake porn.

The telecommunications regulator said on Monday that Telegram had fully complied with its requests to remove 148 videos last month, with the longest removal lasting 36 hours.

“Telegram accelerated our two-way communication by deleting all deepfake videos requested by the committee and immediately providing us with the results,” said Ryu Hee-lim, chairman of the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC).

“We assess the results of our first meeting positively and expect that illegal information in Telegram will be blocked and deleted more quickly,” he added.

The KCSC said the company claimed to “deeply understand the situation in Korea, where deepfake sex crimes have become a societal problem,” and promised a zero-tolerance policy toward such content.

Cybersecurity startup Security Hero recorded nearly 96,000 deepfake videos online worldwide last year, 53 percent of which featured South Korean singers and actresses.

Telegram’s “sudden move” to cooperate with South Korean authorities may be linked to the arrest in France of the app’s boss Pavel Durov, who is accused of failing to act against criminals, a cybersecurity professor told AFP.

“Telegram’s marketing argument is that it never partners with any government and that it is more secure than any other messaging app. “So they essentially lose their biggest selling point if this collaboration continues,” said Kim Seung-joo of Korea University.

KCSC’s Ryu said the commission had asked French authorities for urgent cooperation, without giving details.

Separately, South Korea’s police agency said on Monday that there had been “some progress in communications” with Telegram.

“I can’t give details at this point because it’s still in the early stages,” Woo Jong-soo, head of the National Police Agency’s investigation bureau, told reporters.

Police told AFP that this was the first time Telegram had responded since the agency requested information from members on the platform.

Police said they had received hundreds of reports of deepfake crimes and arrested 387 suspects.

Telegram did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

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