PETALING JAYA, Aug 28 — The “New Nth Room” has gone viral in South Korea, and it paints a disturbing picture of the return of the Telegram-based sexually exploitative activities.

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

Involving blackmail, cybersex trafficking, and the spread of sexually exploitative videos via the Telegram app between 2018 and 2020, it was then led by a man nicknamed god god (later identified as Moon Hyung-wook) who sold sexual exploitation videos on Telegram channels and groups.

It was quickly followed by a copycat, with the “Doctor's Room”, which was operated by a man with the handle Doctor (later identified as Cho Ju-bin), who was accused of blackmailing dozens of women, forcing them to take sexually exploitative videos, some involving rape.

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

A Netflix documentary about the case, entitled Cyber Hell: Exposing An Internet Horror, was released in 2022.

For South Korean women, the horrors of the original case and its copycat remains fresh in their memories.

The discussions of the “New Nth Room” going viral now, bears a concerning resemblance to that case — except it gets even more twisted.

This time, it gets uglier, where perpetrators target women around them, including their own family members.

The New Nth Room — what is it?

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

• Disturbing images include those taken without consent

• Photos are often taken while the women are asleep or, in some instances, drugged.

• Victims aren’t limited to family members but also include colleagues and classmates or any women perpetrators in participants come in contact with.

• Images include intended “humiliation”, by sharing images of acting inappropriately with the victims, with mothers, siblings or relatives targeted

• Students who are minors are the target, listed by age and their educational facility

• Images pornographic in nature are shared alongside AI deepfake images

The set of Telegram rooms, such as one with a total of more than 212,000 participants as reported by Koreaboo, revealed that in order to gain access to the rooms, one must submit a set of photos of any girl or woman around them — including family members, and provide the girl’s personal details.

Some of these rooms revolve around “humiliating” family members by submitting photos or videos of one inappropriately touching one’s sister or mother.

An account called Queenarchive1 on X, which has since been suspended, shared screenshots of such telegram rooms that included a perpetrator’s video of themselves lifting their sleeping younger sister’s skirt and touching her inappropriately,

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

The user posted about one such “humiliation room” with 1932 people in it with various categories such as “cousin room,” “mom room,” “acquaintance room,” “older sister room,” and “younger sister room.”

Social media users have banded against the rooms, exposing a list of schools where perpetrators and victims have been revealed to be from.

The extensive list includes middle and high schools.

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

Online vigilantes have also taken to revealing perpetrators’ identities online with some barely in their teens.

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

As the post went viral, more women came forward to share their experiences of being secretly photographed by male relatives. Some were captured changing clothes, while others were photographed sleeping.

Many lamented the situation is exacerbated by dismissive attitude of many parents when informed about these incidents.

Some parents downplay the severity, blame the victims, or force reconciliation, ignoring the emotional trauma inflicted.