It will become easier to remove revenge porn from online websites in South Korea amid nationwide efforts to fight digital sexual crimes involving releases of non-consensual pornographic images.

Noh Woong-rae, lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea and chair of the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee, on Tuesday submitted a revised bill that calls for easier and faster removal of online sexual abuse materials. Under the amended bill, victims of revenge porn will be able to submit an online form subjected to electronic deliberation by the Korea Communications Standards Commission to deal online circulation of harmful materials such as so-called spy cam porn. The revised bill will allow establishment of a permanent electronic deliberation system on the illicit materials, which will help reduce damage from online sexual crime.

Currently, the Korea Communications Standards Commission takes action by going through deliberation after revenge porn victims claim offensive sexual assault to block overseas network and remove materials from local websites. It takes three days on average for deliberation, which is excessively long considering the viral spread of pornographic visuals.

According to Korea Communications Standards Commission data submitted to Noh, the commission deliberated record 14,385 online sexual crime cases in the first 10 months of this year, quadrupling from 768 cases in 2015. Of them, 123 cases have been removed and 14,166 blocked.

Online platform providers such as Google and Tumblr also autonomously deleted 7,309 online sexual assault content last year, up from 1,100 cases in 2016, before formal procedure initiated by the Korea Communications Standards Commission.

By Kim Hyo-sung and Lee Eun-joo

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]