SEOUL – South Korea has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system that automatically monitors, detects, reports and requests the removal of sexually exploitative content online within six minutes.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on May 21 that it had developed the system and will be launching it.
Without the AI system, the entire process takes an average of almost three hours, as the authorities have to manually locate illegal videos circulating on social media platforms, online communities and illicit websites, and then file deletion requests with the respective sites.
Since 2023, the city government has worked with the Seoul Institute to use AI to monitor sexually exploitative content on social media websites, online communities and the dark web.
But the newly developed AI tool can do more than just monitor – it is able to generate a report of its findings, as well as automatically draft an e-mail requesting that website operators delete the content.
The system can compose the e-mail in up to seven languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Vietnamese.
The e-mail and report are then checked by an official in charge before they are sent out.
Additionally, amid an increasing number of cases where sexually exploitative videos are uploaded to servers located in other countries, the city government added that the new system will also be able to monitor content posted overseas.
The city government’s support centre for digital sex crime victims provides “one-stop support”, including investigative and legal support, psychological therapy and medical assistance.
According to numbers provided by the city government, the centre has received reports filed by up to 3,650 people between 2022 and March 2025 and has helped handle 64,677 cases.
The majority of the victims were in their teens and 20s.
Over the last few years, there has been a significant increase in digital sex crime victims among children and teenagers – from 50 cases in 2022 to 624 in 2024. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
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