User Count Last Month Hits Record Increase
About One-Third of Total Growth from Teens
The number of domestic users of Telegram, a closed social networking service (SNS) known to have been used as a distribution channel by so-called 'deepfake porn' creators, has been found to have increased.
On the 5th, the application (app) analysis service Mobile Index announced that as of last month, Telegram's monthly active users (MAU) reached 3,471,421, an increase of 311,130 compared to the previous month. This increase is the largest since app tracking began in March 2021. By age group, the number of monthly active users under the age of 10 surged by 99,980, accounting for 32.1% of the total increase.
Telegram is an app characterized by emphasizing privacy protection through its 'Secret Chat' feature. When the Secret Chat feature is activated, all messages exchanged between users are end-to-end encrypted. However, controversies have grown as cases of this feature being exploited for criminal activities have repeatedly emerged. On the 26th of last month, Pavel Durov (39), co-founder of Telegram, was arrested and detained in Paris, France.
In South Korea, deepfake pornographic content that superimposes the faces of celebrities or acquaintances onto explicit material is known to have spread via Telegram. Additionally, the 'Nth Room' case, which involved mass production and illegal distribution of sexual exploitation materials to generate profit, also originated on Telegram.
As a result, while Telegram's security is highly regarded domestically, there is also a strong sentiment of caution regarding its potential use for criminal purposes.
According to a survey conducted by Embrain Trend Monitor from April 9 to 12 this year, targeting 1,000 adults aged 19 to 69 nationwide, 62.1% of respondents said, "Telegram's security and privacy protection features are a significant advantage compared to other messengers." However, negative views also coexisted, with over 70% (71.9%) responding that "it is often misused for crimes."
The number of Telegram users in South Korea has steadily increased since the controversy over investigative agencies monitoring KakaoTalk in 2014. Since then, whenever major or minor issues such as outages occurred in domestic messenger apps, many people used Telegram as a supplementary messaging tool.
Meanwhile, according to the National Police Agency, during the five-day intensive crackdown from the 26th to the 30th of last month, there were a total of 118 reports of deepfake sex crimes. Among 33 suspects identified by the police, 31 were specified, and among the seven arrested, six were teenagers.
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