The female cofounder of South Korea’s largest porn site has been jailed following months of mounting public fury over the spread of secretly filmed spycam pornography.
Tens of thousands of women have rallied against the growing phenomenon of spycam videos, known in Korean as molka, which mostly involve men filming women without their consent in toilets, changing rooms and in public.
Soranet — which had more than 1 million users until it was shut down in 2016 amid widespread outrage — carried thousands of such clips among reams of other X-rated content.
Producing and circulating all forms of pornography is illegal in South Korea.
The site’s owner, surnamed Song, was on Wednesday sentenced to four years in prison and fined 1.4 billion won (US$1.25 million) for aiding and abetting the distribution of obscene material, including sex videos featuring minors.
The 45-year-old, who founded Soranet in 1999 with her husband and two others, “seriously damaged and distorted people’s universal dignity and value,” a court statement said.
She had “enjoyed huge profit” from the site, it added.
Song had for years lived as a fugitive in New Zealand, but was arrested in June last year when she returned to Seoul after authorities annulled her passport.
Her husband and another couple known to be co-owners of the site — all of whom have Australian citizenship or permanent residency — remain overseas.
Spycam crimes reported to South Korean police surged from about 1,100 in 2010 to more than 6,500 in 2017, with many of the videos shared or sold online.
About 98 percent of offenders are men, while more than 80 percent of victims are women, official statistics showed.
Despite a ban on pornography, many videos are widely consumed on servers based in foreign countries or secretly downloaded on file-sharing sites.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
RSS