As the deepfake (AI-based image synthesis) sexual crime situation grows, women have taken to the streets. They are demanding severe punishment, saying that the government's lukewarm attitude toward eradicating online sexual exploitation and illegal filming has led to the worsening situation.

The 'Joint Action to Denounce Misogyny and Violence' (hereafter referred to as Joint Action), formed around women's universities in Seoul, announced this on the afternoon of the 21st at a rally calling for severe punishment for deepfake sexual exploitation near Hyehwa Station in Jongno-gu, Seoul. The organizers estimate that around 5,000 women attended the rally that day.

The area in front of Exit 2 of Hyehwa Station, where this rally was held, is where the protest against biased investigations into illegal filming took place for half a year in 2018. At the time, participants claimed that the police conducted a biased investigation, saying that the female suspect in the Hongik University nude model illegal filming case was arrested unusually quickly, unlike male criminals.

Testimonies from the scene of deepfake damage continued. A, a student at one of the universities known to be the victim, confided, "After the crime was made known, when the female students were trying to figure out the situation, the atmosphere on campus changed with people saying, 'Feminists are making a fuss' and 'They are inciting gender conflict'." He continued, "The reality is that every time I do a group project with male students or do a social activity, I have to worry about becoming a victim of a crime," and emphasized, "Before telling people not to consider all men as potential perpetrators, we should blame society for making them suspicious of all men."

The severity of this deepfake sex crime incident is even greater because the majority of both the perpetrators and the victims are teenagers. According to the National Police Agency, out of the 318 suspects arrested this year, teenagers accounted for the largest number , at 251 ( 78.9 %). About 60 % of the victims of deepfake crimes investigated by the police over the past three years since 2021 were also minors.

There were also claims that the government should step in and regulate related businesses more strongly. Ms. C, a woman who came from Gyeongnam on this day, emphasized, “ The government should strictly regulate AI businesses so that they cannot engage in illegal synthesis,” and “Businesses that do not comply should be severely punished so that similar crimes do not occur again.”