In March, the 'Nth Room Incident' was reported, causing great anger in Korean society. It is known that very sadistic sexual exploitation crimes including self-harm and sexual assault against a large number of victims have been committed through online messenger services. It was even more shocking to learn that many of the victims included minors. The severity of sexual crimes in Korea was revealed through this Nth Room incident in that tens of thousands of perpetrators watched or possessed sexual exploitation videos. To cope with these digital sex crimes and prevent a recurrence, the government is preparing various legal measures. However, there are mixed voices of anticipation and concern over this. Let's now look more in depth into the Nth Room incident and explore effective countermeasures to eradicate these crimes in the future.
Overview of the Nth Room Case
Summary of the Incident
The so-called Nth Room incident, which shocked the public in the first half of 2020, is a sex exploitation crime that took place through ‘Telegram’ messenger. Telegram is an Internet mobile messenger developed by Russia's Durov brothers. The messenger's signature feature is that it prides itself on security strong enough that they company held a hacking competition to give prize money to anyone who found out the code password of the server. However, such a strong security service has provided an illegal channel for the secret distribution of sexual exploitation contents. Also, Telegram, an overseas Internet business, was characterized by its uncooperative nature in domestic investigations, so it received a greater use from criminals. The assailants, who opened chat rooms under the names of 'Doctor', 'Gotham', 'Armband' etc. through Telegram, threatened women, including minors, and some men to take sex exploitation videos of themselves. It was a criminal form that after advertising seeking part-time jobs without specific explanations, found out victims' personal information to further blackmail the victims. In addition, the perpetrators committed brutal acts such as selling and distributing sexually exploited videos at a high price or actually sexually assaulting victims. At least 70 victims have been identified in the 'doctor' room, and 16 of them are known to be minors. According to a report aired on SBS's ‘Curious Story Y’ program in January, at least 760 perpetrators belonged to one chat room alone. In other words, all of them paid for and participated in sex exploitation crimes and sat on the sidelines.
When the news became known, a petition was posted on the Cheong Wa Dae (Blue House) national petition bulletin board on April 19th asking for thorough investigation and strong punishment related to the Nth Room. The petition has the largest number of signatures ever, with more than 6.91 million. This shows the public anger over digital sex crimes. It can also be seen as a backlash against the court, which has so far taken digital sex crimes lightly and punished perpetrators weakly. Then, why is the national attention focused on the Nth Room incident? Seo Seung-hee, head of the Korea Cyber Sexual Violence Response Center, pointed out that it is because the Nth Room incident is a very meticulous and organized crime. Previously, similar online sexual crimes, in which a perpetrator approached female youth and received sexual exploitation videos and threatened them frequently occurred. In those cases, however, the number of direct perpetrators was relatively small and the crimes themselves were more simple. On the other hand, the Nth Room case is a method in which a large number of observers and buyers are waiting, and for distribution of video clips, sexual exploitation is carefully planned, and victims are searchable. In other words, the Nth Room incident was a thoroughly planned crime, and the perpetrators were organized on a large scale. Seo said, "Distorted gender perception was established as a culture among some men" and explained, "Not perceiving the consumption or purchase of sexual exploits as sexual violence has made this violence possible”. It is a common view of sexual violence counseling experts that eradication of sexual exploitation requires improvement of awareness through severe punishment.
Progress of Punishment
Oh Deok-sik, a senior judge at the Seoul Central District Court, was to be in charge of the trial of the Nth Room case. However, more than 400,000 people signed the petition, "I oppose Judge Oh Deok-sik as a judge in charge of the Nth Room case". As a result, the judge in charge of the trial changed. The reason for the opposition was that the judge had consistently handed down generous rulings such as fines and probation in numerous sex crimes trials. Public criticism of the low gender sensitivity of the legislature and the judiciary has been rife. Therefore, the trial was handed over to Judge Park Hyun-sook.
The police arrested a total of 430 digital sexual crime suspects by May 7th and imprisoned 70 of them. In addition, the police are trying to draw up guidelines for the undercover investigation by referring the case to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to facilitate the arrests. Meanwhile, the prosecution announced that it will seek maximum life imprisonment for sexual exploitation video production crimes in the future by preparing a 'digital sexual crime handling standard'. According to the standard, the potential sentencing was greatly strengthened even for those who simply distributed or possessed video footage. It also allows so-called 'Spectators', those who participated in the incident to be sentenced to prison. Additionally, the prosecution decided to disclose the identities of the major criminals, Cho Ju-bin, Kang Hoon, Lee Won-ho and Moon Hyung-wook, considering the gravity of the case and the strong demands of the people. This is the first case in which the identities of sex offenders have been disclosed since the system of disclosing the identities of felons was established in 2010. They were put on trial on charges of producing and distributing pornographic materials under the Act on the Protection of Children and Youth against Sex Offenses, forcing, intimidation, and fraud under the Criminal Law, camera filming under the ACT on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Sexual Crimes, sexual harassment under the Child Welfare Act, defamation under the ACT on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, etc. In particular, in the case of Jo Ju-bin, the main culprit under 14 charges, the legal profession believes that a maximum of life imprisonment, and minimum 15 years, will be sought.
Countermeasures at the National Level
So what efforts are being made at the national level to counter and prevent online sexual violence crimes? On April 29th, a plenary session of the National Assembly voted to revise the ACT on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, Etc. of Sexual Crimes, also known as the 'Nth Room Incident Prevention Act'. Under the revision, those who possess, purchase, store or watch illegal sexual footage could be sentenced to up to three years in prison or fined up to 30 million won. Unlike the previous litigation, which only targeted the sale, lease and provision of illegal photographs, even simple possession will be enough to take legal action in the future. The amendment also made it clear that even self-taken photographs are subject to punishment if others distribute them against the will of the injured parties. And the age standard for rape of minors has been raised from 13 to 16 years old, expanding the scope of protection.
In addition to the punishment of criminal offenders, bills have also emerged that emphasize internet providers' self-censorship and responsible attitudes. On May 7th, The Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee approved a revision to the Telecommunications Business ACT. The main purpose of the amendment is to strengthen the responsibility for preventing distribution of digital sex crimes given to Internet providers. Accordingly, in the future, Internet providers should take related measures such as 'filtering technology' that can filter out digital sex crimes before the contents are distributed. It is also required to submit an annual report to the Korea Communications Commission on efforts to prevent the distribution of digital sex crimes. Internet providers who violate this can be fined up to 3 percent of their sales, and the same policy will be applied to overseas Internet providers.
Voices of Concern
However, various side effects also have been raised due to the numerous policies of the legislative, judicial, and executive governments that appeared to prevent the recurrence of the Nth Room incident. If Internet operators are overcharged with responsibility for the distribution of sexual exploitation, they must moderate the contents of each and every internet chat room to avoid punishment. In other words, Internet providers would be responsible to monitor and censor private conversations between individuals. Currently, there is no advanced automatic algorithm technology, so humans have no choice but to monitor other people's conversations directly. Considering the huge amounts of online messengers coming and going in a day, some point out that reviewing all of these conversations is impossible. Therefore, if the legislation is implemented, the effect of preventing the distribution of sex crimes is negligible, but it can lead to the worst situation that only increases the possibility of another crime such as invasion of privacy and abuse of personal information. In response, lawyer Koo Tae-eon also pointed out that "it is unconstitutional to impose a duty of surveillance between the private sector”, and claimed that "the Nth Room incident is a criminal case, and that the Justice Ministry and the National Police Agency should take the lead in crime prevention”.
Meanwhile, the Women with Disabilities and Women's Sympathy Group expressed critical views on policies dedicated to eradicate sex crimes such as 'raising the age of rape on the agenda', 'strengthening the sentence' and 'expanding the disclosure of personal information of criminals'. They believed that the perpetrator punitivism and victim-protectionist frame were the limiting factors in fundamentally changing the social structural problems of sexual violence.
The Nth Room incident clearly shows the aspects of our society, where poor sex crime response systems and false gender awareness are prevalent. Seo Seung-hee, the aforementioned representative, explained, "Although there have been many cases of intimidation and sex crimes through online access, we have not been able to prevent the terrible massive sexual exploitation of room N because we have not considered it a big deal”. In other words, the long-standing complacency of sex crimes led to the false perception that "this level of sex crimes will not be punished" and "no problem if we don't get caught," causing further damage. Thus, a strong legal penalty, as well as a supplement to the expected threshold, must be made simultaneously. Above all, we must clearly recognize that such sex crimes can happen to all of us. We should realize the seriousness of sex crimes and the gravity of the damage and pay continued attention to eradicating crime like thi