The whole nation is furious about the unprecedented sexual assault, the so-called “Nth Room.” The “Nth Room” is a digital sexual assault which happened through social media Telegram. The majority of its victims are minors and even include celebrities, teachers, and lots of women from various social statuses. Assailants – viewers – are uncountable. After the incident, the digital sex crime issue started to be publicized and brought considerable changes in Korean society. The UOS Times dealt with changes brought by the “Nth Room”, mainly focusing on the “Nth Room Prevention Law.”
Before moving on to how the incident has changed our society, we briefly looked into the background information of the “Nth Room”. One of the characteristics of “Nth Room” is that it was hard to detect all of its assailants, as Telegram is operated anonymously by the skillful use of its server. The majority of its unspecified sexually abused victims, requiring inhumane things in digital rooms counted from 1 to 8. Managers of each room illicitly collected personal information of victims and used it to threaten them. They also hired people to monitor the victims so they could not escape from their crimes. The female victims in Telegram were referred to as “slaves”, who should obey to every sexual abuse. However, as the system was thoroughly managed, the “Nth Room” was a closed book until recent days, making it almost impossible to find out all the violators.
The “Nth Room” was finally revealed by the team, “Flame”, composed of two female college students. They camouflaged themselves as viewers of the chat room since 2018 to investigate deeply. Thanks to their efforts, people came to know about this terrible sexual assault. After the case became a topic, digital sex crimes received the attention of the whole nation. Before the case, lots of digital sex crimes have been neglected because of the absence of appropriate legislations and laws. In this serious context, the prevention law related to the “Nth Room” appeared.
The Nth Room Prevention Law
The “Nth Room” caused public outrage, leading over 200,000 people to sign for the petition against offenders. As the judicial system of Korea has long been criticized for imposing a minute penalty on sexual abuse cases, people strongly argued that tougher punishment must be inflicted. The National Assembly was pressured by public opinion. Therefore, it passed the so-called the “Nth Room Prevention Act” to ameliorate the recognized problem. The “Nth Room Protection Act” includes six major legislations in two parts: criminal law (special law on sexual violence) and the information network system law. The modified criminal law consists of five clauses as follows:
First, the age standard of negligent rape was raised from 13 to 16. Negligent rape is a concept to prevent the sexual relationship between an adult and an underaged. According to the revised law, if a grown-up has a sexual relationship with minors under 16 years old, it will be considered as a rape even if there was an agreement.
Second, the regulation regarding negligent rape or child molestation towards people aged under 13 was reinforced. Previously, those who charged for this crime would be sentenced to more than five years or fined 30 million to 50 million KRW. However, after the new bill has passed, the monetary penalty had been eliminated along with the statute of limitations.
Third, the guideline on how to punish people who buy, watch, download, or simply own illegal sexual video was established. There was no such restriction before, however, from now on, the above actions are punishable by under three years in jail or a fine under 30 million KRW.
Fourth, there are increased penalties in filming or distributing videos on sexual exploitation. The period of imprisonment got longer - less than five years to seven years. There also will be a stiffer fine than before - a maximum of 50 million KRW. To those who utilized the information network system in sharing videos to make a profit, more than three years in jail will be charged. The above penalty includes restrictions on self-filmed videos shared without consent.
Fifth, violators who threaten or coerce people to film sexual videos will receive at least a year and three years in jail respectively. Compared to the past, the level of punishment was raised, as all the monetary penalties were removed.
As above, the amended criminal law increased penalty by revising existent clauses or creating new regulations. This is a meaningful advancement since it enables punishment, not only on general sexual assault but also crimes in media such as the “Deep fake.” The “Deep fake” is a technique to composite certain images into videos, similar to computer graphics. In the past, there was no appropriate way to control the “Deep fake.” However, the recently revised law now covers what we had missed before.
There are also revised laws for the information network system. The law was corrected to prevent secondary victimization which can be caused by the distribution of illegal films. Thus, it imposes responsibilities for transparency and banning illegal distribution to the providers of information network services. The providers should submit reports about transparency of distribution. If one refuses to follow the rules, the government could impose a fine or a penalty. Also, the revised law includes extraterritorial application to definitize the duties for licensees that are abroad. The background of this extended law is that because the Telegram server is located abroad, it took a lot of time tracing the assailants. The revised clauses are as below:
1) Laws are also applied when activities conducted in foreign countries also affect domestic markets and users. (New organized law of clause 5-2)
2) Information and communication service providers who comply with the standards specified by the Presidential Decree must be designated the responsibilities for preventing distributions of illegal films or videos. (New organized law of clause 44-9, clause 76-2-4-4)
3) Information and telecommunications service providers who meet the standards specified by the Presidential Decree should submit an annual transparency report to the Korea Communications Commission. (New organized law of clause 64-5, clause 76-3-25)
Problems
Despite the progress brought by the “Nth Room Prevention Law” various problems remain unsolved. When it comes to criminal law, advanced penalties are still far behind people’ expectations. Compared to other countries such as the U.S., where a person who owns a video of the sexual exploitation of a child can be sentenced up to ten years, punishment under the Korean law is relatively weaker. For the same crime, a person will be imprisoned for a year according to the current Korean criminal law. This problem is not confined to child abuse, but it is a matter of every sexual crime. Even though the amended law struggled to strengthen the level of punishment, it does not fully meet the people’ demand.
The revised information network system also has limitations. The opponents of the law say it is almost impossible to impose the laws for the servers that are based abroad like Telegram. As the head office and server are indefinite, crimes based on servers that are abroad are excluded from the investigation. For these reasons, opponents assert that the revised information network system law is a reverse discrimination for domestic providers. Since the restrictions are only set in domestic areas, this weakens the competitiveness of domestic businesses. Regarding these concerns, the government said, “We will establish a legal system so that the law will be also applied to overseas servers and businesses.” Moreover, “In the case of Telegram, we will strive to secure regulatory enforcement in cooperation with not only domestic but also investigate agencies that are abroad.”
Invasion of privacy is another concern regarding the information network system. As the amended law imposes an obligation to monitor illegal sexual videos of internet providers, it is inevitable that providers trace individual online records. Korea Communications Commission (KCC) responded to these worries, insisting that the law is mainly based on publicly displayed signs and chat rooms, so the law does not regulate private talks among individuals. However, some contradict that there are still risks that spying on one’s privacy may be justified by the revised law.
Along with those limitations, one of the fundamental problems in approaching the “Nth Room” crisis is the absence of efforts to improve the public awareness on online sexual crimes. The “Nth Room” could exist because there were many viewers without any sense of guilt. If there is no endeavor to disabuse them of the wrong conception, this type of tragedy may be repeated again. It is important to think of how to regulate the violators. However, it is also significant to take necessary precautions through education.
One of the most unprecedented tragedies, the “Nth Room”, has brought substantial changes in the Korean society. The incident raised public awareness about digital sex crime, and this contributed to the advancement of relevant statute. However, as discussed above, still, some problems remain. In order to cope with that matter, public discussion on how to effectively penalize and deter digital sexual crime is needed more in detail.
Hong Sung-hwa, Heo Hyang-ki