THE REAL AI HORROR STORY ISN’T ROBOTS TAKING JOBS. IT’S PEOPLE USING “INNOVATION” TO…
THE REAL AI HORROR STORY ISN’T ROBOTS TAKING JOBS. IT’S PEOPLE USING “INNOVATION” TO DESTROY WOMEN’S LIVES.
South Korea is now investigating Telegram over alleged AI-generated image-based abuse — and honestly, the most shocking part is not that this happened. The shocking part is that anyone is still pretending this is only a “technology problem” instead of a misogyny problem with better software.
According to the article, South Korean police opened an investigation into Telegram after chat rooms were found spreading fake abusive images and videos of women and girls made with AI. Victims reportedly include students, teachers, soldiers, journalists, and teenagers. Let that sink in: ordinary women existing online, going to school, working, posting photos, living their lives — then suddenly being turned into material for public humiliation without consent.
This is not “boys being boys.” This is not “dark internet culture.” This is not “AI going too far.” This is gendered abuse at industrial scale.
The article says perpetrators often take images from social media or secretly photograph women they know, then use AI to create fake abusive content and share it in Telegram rooms with names like “mutual acquaintance room” or “humiliation room.” That word — humiliation — is the entire point. These people are not just chasing content. They are chasing power. They want women to know that no space is safe: not school, not work, not home, not even their own face.
And here is where it gets uglier: many victims are women and girls, while many suspects are teenagers. Police data cited in the article says 74% of suspects booked in the first seven months of 2024 were ages 10 to 19. So while politicians and tech companies keep selling AI as the shiny future, some boys are learning that the future means they can weaponize a classmate’s face for laughs, status, and group approval.
This is why “neutral technology” is a lie.
AI did not invent sexism. Telegram did not invent abuse. But platforms and AI tools can supercharge it, hide it, scale it, and make it feel consequence-free. When abuse becomes searchable, shareable, anonymous, and automated, it stops being one “bad user” and becomes infrastructure.
South Korea’s government watchdog reportedly received almost 6,500 requests to handle abusive deepfake videos between January and July 2024 — four times the number from the same period the year before. Police received 297 reports in the first seven months of 2024, compared with 180 in all of 2023. That is not a glitch. That is a social emergency.
And yet the response from power is always late, always soft, always wrapped in concern after the damage is already done.
Women’s rights groups have argued that the root cause is sexism. They are right. Because this is not just about images. It is about a society where women are told to protect themselves better while men are not taught to stop destroying them. It is about governments cutting support systems, platforms hiding behind moderation statements, and legal systems treating digital abuse like it is somehow less real because it happened through a screen.
But ask the victims if it feels less real.
Ask the student who cannot trust her classmates anymore.
Ask the teacher whose authority can be attacked with a fake image.
Ask the journalist whose face becomes a weapon against her credibility.
Ask any woman who now has to wonder whether a normal photo could be turned into public humiliation.
The real scandal is not just that Telegram is being investigated.
The real scandal is that women have been warning everyone for years, and society only acts when the abuse becomes too big to ignore.
So here is the question: if AI can copy a woman’s face, erase her consent, and distribute her humiliation faster than the law can respond — who is actually being protected by this “innovation”?
Because from here, it looks like the future is being built by men, monetized by platforms, excused by governments, and paid for by women.
Discuss: Is this an AI problem, a platform problem, a legal problem — or is it finally time to admit it is a patriarchy problem wearing a tech hoodie?