K-pop girl group NewJeans members walk on the blue carpet at the 2025 Spring/Summer Seoul Fashion Week at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul on September 3, 2024. - AFP photo
South Korean pop idols are often objects of fantasy, prompting malicious internet users to feature their likenesses in deepfake pornographic photos and videos.
This phenomenon is becoming so widespread in South Korea that a major K-pop label has declared its intention to take legal action.
JYP Entertainment, the entertainment company representing girl band TWICE, announced on August 30 that it would be taking legal action in South Korea to stop the creation and distribution of pornographic deepfakes featuring its artists, reports the Korea Times. The agency told the local media that it is currently working with a specialist law firm to gather evidence against the creators of this fake content.
Like JYP Entertainment, other record companies are mobilizing in the hope of taking legal action against internet users who create pornographic deepfakes of their female pop stars. Woollim Entertainment filed a complaint in July against the creators of deepfakes featuring one of their artists, Kwon Eun-bi. Its competitor, ADOR, did the same in June to protect the members of its flagship girl band, NewJeans, according to the Korea Times.
Unfortunately, this practice is widespread in South Korea. Many K-pop singers, such as Yujeong, have been victims of it. The young woman, who is a member of the band Brave Girls, revealed on a TV show in February that she had discovered that internet users had grafted her face onto the naked bodies of various women. "It was incredibly distressing. This can happen to anyone, regardless of gender," she said on the show, according to the Korea Times.
Up to five years in prison
But in the overwhelming majority of cases, pornographic deepfakes feature female K-pop stars. In fact, these young women are the biggest victims of this digital practice worldwide, according to a report on the subject by the cybersecurity startup Security Hero. The worldwide infatuation with K-pop idols goes some way to explaining this phenomenon, although it is also closely linked to the rise of the 'masculinist' movement in South Korea.
The #metoo movement has exacerbated gender tensions in the country. Some young men are convinced that South Korean society is unfavorable to them, which explains the difficulties they encounter on the job market, for example. At the same time, more and more South Korean women are uniting in feminist movements or collectives to denounce the violence they suffer on a daily basis. These militant demands have made them the target of both physical and digital reprisals.
Pornographic deepfakes are one of them. Yet this practice is punishable under South Korean law. "Making sexually explicit deepfakes with the intention to distribute them" is punishable by five years' in prison and a fine of 50 million won (approx. €33,754), according to the South China Morning Post.
However, convictions are rare and complaints are often dismissed by the police. - Relax News
