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South Korea battles ‘spycam porn’ with 24/7 monitoring by 16-member unit
- Known as molka, the spycam videos are largely shot by men secretly filming women in schools, toilets and elsewhere
- New task force took action 82 times a day in October on average – eight times more than the regulator did four years ago, before the unit was set up
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In a drab government office in Seoul, a team of broadcast regulators spend their days watching online porn – the frontline troops of South Korea’s attempts to crack down on spycam videos that mostly expose women.
The 16-member digital sex crime monitoring unit was set up this autumn by the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC), with a mission to hunt down and remove sexual videos posted without consent. As of last month it operates 24 hours a day.
Known as molka, spycam videos are largely shot by men secretly filming women in schools, toilets and elsewhere.
The task force also targets “revenge porn”, private sex videos filmed and shared without permission by disgruntled ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands, or malicious acquaintances.
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In the highest-profile example, star K-pop singer Jung Joon-young was arrested in March on charges of filming and distributing illicit sex videos without the consent of his female partners. His court verdict is due next week, with prosecutors demanding seven years’ imprisonment.
The twin phenomena have become increasingly widespread in the hyper-wired South, driving tens of thousands of women to demonstrate against them in the streets of Seoul last year, chanting “My life is not your porn” and demanding authorities take action.
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