TW: sexual crimes and r*pe mentions. The Nth Room was a dark web sexual crime operation in South Korea that mainly used Telegram to sell and distribute explicit content from from 2018 to 2020. The number of confirmed victims is at least 103, including 26 minors. Predatory traffickers took advantage of victims’ financial situations and recruited them to take jobs with seemingly ‘easy’ money in exchange. Once they had obtained personal information, they blackmailed the victims, forcing them to upload sexually exploitative pictures and videos to multiple chat rooms: trapping them in sexual slavery. Meanwhile, the perpetrators were making money off anonymous chat room users who were willing to pay for their sick chance to watch and sometimes, participate. It was a team of young journalists who eventually brought the Nth Room to the public’s attention, leading to the arrests of its ringleaders: men only known as 갓갓 (“God God”) and 박사 (“Baksa”) online. In March 2020, their identities were revealed on TV across Korea, after millions of outraged people demanded justice. “Baksa” - who turned out to be 25-year-old Cho Joo Bin - thanked everyone for “putting the brakes on the life of a devil that could not be stopped.” While the case led to the arrests of over 60 dark web chat room operators and some legal revisions, there is still much work to be done to improve South Korea’s laws around digital sex crimes and prevent future Nth Rooms.
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