‘New Nth Room’ — Disturbing return of Telegram-based groups with sexually exploitative material shakes up South Korea

PETALING JAYA, Aug 28 — The “New Nth Room” has gone viral in South Korea, painting a disturbing picture of the return of Telegram-based sexual exploitation activities.

The Republic was first rocked by revelations about the original “Nth Room” in 2020, where the sharing of explicit and violent content in chat rooms made headlines.

Between 2018 and 2020, the organization engaged in blackmail, cybersex trafficking, and the distribution of sexually exploitative videos via the Telegram app. The organization was led at the time by a man nicknamed god god (later identified as Moon Hyung-wook) who sold sexually exploitative videos on Telegram channels and groups.

Soon, a copycat followed, namely the “Doctor’s Room,” run by a man going by the alias Doctor (later identified as Cho Ju-bin). He was accused of blackmailing dozens of women and forcing them to make sexually exploitative videos, some of which depicted rape.

It was revealed that there were at least 103 confirmed victims, including 26 minors, many of whom had their images shared or sold to over 260,000 accounts, paid for anonymously in cryptocurrency.

A Netflix documentary about the case, titled Cyber ​​​​Hell: An Internet Horror Exposedwas released in 2022.

For South Korean women, the horrors of the original case and its replica are still fresh in their memories.

The “New Nth Room” discussions that are now going viral bear a disturbing resemblance to that case – except it gets even crazier.

This time it gets even worse: the perpetrators target women in their environment, including their own family members.

The New Nth Chamber — What is it?

• Secret chat rooms where men share forbidden photos of their mothers, sisters and other women in their lives.

• Disturbing images are images taken without permission

• Photographs are often taken while the women are asleep or, in some cases, under the influence of drugs.

• Victims are not only family members, but also colleagues, classmates and female perpetrators with whom participants come into contact.

• Images contain deliberate ‘humiliation’, through sharing images of inappropriate behaviour with the victims, with mothers, siblings or family members who are targeted

• The target group consists of minor students, classified by age and educational institution.

• Images of a pornographic nature are shared alongside AI deepfake images

The set of Telegram rooms, such as one with a total of over 212,000 participants as reported by Koreaboorevealed that to gain access to the rooms, one had to hand over a set of photographs of each girl or woman in the area – including family members – and provide the girl’s personal details.

Some of these spaces revolve around ‘humiliating’ family members by sending photos or videos of someone inappropriately touching their sister or mother.

A now-suspended account called Queenarchive1 on X shared screenshots of such telegram rooms, including a video of one perpetrator lifting his sleeping younger sister’s skirt and touching her inappropriately.

It was also revealed that some rooms contained AI deepfake porn.

The user posted about such a ‘humiliation room’ with 1932 people in it, with different categories such as ‘room for cousins’, ‘room for mothers’, ‘room for acquaintances’, ‘room for older sister’ and ‘room for younger sister’.

Social media users have risen up against the locals, publishing a list of schools where the perpetrators and victims are known to come from.

The extended list includes secondary schools and colleges.

Top universities such as the famous SKY universities, Yonsei, Seoul National and Korea Universities are also not spared.

Online vigilantes also expose the identities of perpetrators online, sometimes even as early as the teenage years.

Another South Korean user on X also issued a warning with a lengthy thread explaining the extent of the disturbing activity online.

As the post went viral, more women came forward to share their experiences of being secretly photographed by male family members. Some were captured getting changed, while others were photographed sleeping.

Many regret that the situation is made worse by the dismissive attitude of many parents when informed of these incidents.

Some parents downplay the seriousness of the problem, blame the victims, or force reconciliation, while ignoring the emotional trauma.