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Most people are aware of the fact that the internet,
much like most things, has a dark side,
and said dark side can get pretty extreme.
For most, thinking of the worst that the internet has
to offer oftentimes conjures up images
of clandestine dark net crime rings,
peddling any number of unspeakable things,
from sexual exploitation material,
all the way to child pornography.
In the case of both, the horrifying truth is that
it's not as difficult to come across as one might think,
and you definitely don't need to venture
into any seedy underbelly to find it.
In most cases, stuff like that plagues surface web
and apps alike, and in no other case is that more apparent
than that of Korea's infamous Nth Room chat rooms,
a place where both women and young girls were extorted,
trafficked, and even tortured,
all for the pleasure of thousands of anonymous paying users.
But how did this even happen?
The story of the Nth Rooms begins
somewhere between late 2018 and early 2019
on an app called Telegram.
You may already be familiar with it,
but if not, just know that on the surface
it's a perfectly normal instant messaging app,
not unlike basically every other one that you've seen.
With over 500 million downloads, it's hardly underground,
and is by no means something exclusively used
for committing crimes.
At the same time, however, there's one specific thing
about Telegram that does make it appealing
for those engaging in illegal activity.
If you head over to Telegram's website,
one of the front and center features is
its security and privacy.
It claims that all communication is heavily encrypted,
and able to self-destruct.
Of course, in this era, everyone is looking
for improved security and privacy,
especially since many feel let down
by some of the bigger tech companies in the world
when it comes to keeping our user information safe.
Now, with everything I just said in mind,
Telegram can be essentially used for just about anything,
no matter how legally dubious,
and that's exactly what this group of online criminals
sought to exploit.
A user dubbed God God is believed to have started
the first small collection of about eight
so-called Nth Rooms,
Nth, according to Merriam-Webster,
meaning numbered with an unspecified,
or indefinitely large ordinal number.
Over time, that number would expand,
and rooms of different names would pop up,
such as the Slave Room, a Female Child Room,
Violate Your Acquaintance Room,
and the Doctor's Room, perhaps the most infamous of all,
for reasons we'll get into shortly.
According to investigators, a lot of the content
would start out as free, usually in the form of teasers.
Eventually, however, users would need to pay up.
The more extreme they wanted the content to be,
the more they'd have to fork over.
Oftentimes, the cost of access would range
anywhere from a couple hundred bucks,
all the way to thousands.
While all of these rooms had different names
and slightly varying focuses,
they all operated in the same manner.
Each room featured content posted via blackmail
by a handful of young girls,
and, or women, usually about three to four of them.
Each was initially sought out on Twitter,
or other readily available social media
by the men running the Nth Rooms,
usually under the guise of a job offer,
or other opportunity.
One, for example, was in middle school,
and offered a fake part-time job
by one of the Nth Room admins.
Through this method, they were able to secure
her personal information, including her home address,
which they said they needed to send her a work phone.
Following this, the admin began to guilt trip the girl,
asking for a nude photo in exchange for the phone.
And from there, things began to escalate quickly.
With the perpetrator now in possession
of a nude photo of the girl,
it was extremely easy to further blackmail her
into doing more extreme acts
in exchange for not alerting her family.
I won't go into too much detail about
what she was forced to do,
but at one point the girl was bleeding,
and begging to stop, which the Nth Room admin did not allow.
In the end, this child was forced to shoot
approximately 40 videos, but believe it or not,
this isn't even the worst of it.
Once this case came to light,
it sparked national outrage in Korea,
and a lot of that had to do with just how dehumanizing
a lot of these forced acts were.
The Nth Rooms were manufactured to be as extreme
and degrading as possible.
Violence was the norm.
Girls were forced to film themselves doing
any number of horrific acts, from drinking toilet water,
all the way to inserting live insects
into their private parts.
Some women were even forced to self-mutilate.
The most infamous example were a few who were forced
to carve the word slave into their flesh.
It's believed that across all of the Nth Rooms
there were approximately 103 victims total,
with about 1/4 of them being teenagers,
and even young children.
But what about the people at the other end of this?
Who were the criminals behind this exploitation ring,
and who exactly were the people buying this material?
When it comes to the ring's operators,
as of mid-2020, roughly 100 suspects have been arrested
in connection to the case,
and of them, at least 18 have been jailed.
Now, at the start of this,
I mentioned the Nth Room's supposed initial creator,
a user named God God,
and while he was one of the first people to start
this nightmare, he was not considered
the Nth Room's ringleader.
That title went to a user who called himself Baksa,
or The Doctor.
His infamous Baksa Room was known for hosting
some of the most extreme Nth Room content.
Here's how he was exposed,
and it's not exactly what you'd expect.
In 2019, two anonymous female college students
known as Team Flame decided to enter
a journalism competition held by the Korea News Agency.
Numerous sex abuse scandals had dominated
the public dialogue in Korea for years at that point,
so the women decided to make that the focus of their entry.
In doing their research,
they discovered a blog advertising the Nth Rooms,
and that's when the gravity
of what they had found had set in.
They alerted police, and were allowed to conduct
their own undercover investigation,
one that led to the arrest of several top operators
of the Nth Rooms, including the ringleader himself.
Once the news came out of The Doctor's arrest,
public outrage in Korea hit an all-time high.
Normally, the name of The Doctor would have been
kept confidential, but people were not ready to accept this.
Several petitions demanded that The Doctor
and his co-conspirators be publicly identified,
and with over 5 million people lending their signatures
to the effort, the Blue House gave in,
and The Doctor was exposed.
Not only that, he was made to face the public.
The person forced upon the podium that day
might not be your idea of a criminal mastermind
behind the sexual exploitation of dozens
of women and children.
His name was Cho Ju-bin,
and his first public appearance shows him donning
a neck brace, bandages, and a lifeless expression,
the getup, many believe, due to self-inflicted injuries
made while in custody.
"I'm sorry towards those who were hurt by me," Cho said.
"Thank you for ending the life of a demon I could not stop."
Thousands, maybe even millions, watched
as this monster was finally revealed.
Cho was 24 at the time of his arrest,
a student, a former volunteer of charity.
All of this points to a disturbing double life
that really shows that you cannot judge a book by its cover.
When Cho's home was raided,
authorities uncovered over $120,000,
all of which, as we now know,
was made in the most heinous way imaginable.
Now, Cho along with a handful of his co-conspirators
may be off the streets,
but keep in mind, this isn't a one-sided situation.
What about the Nth Room customers?
Another aspect of this case that is so shocking
to so many people is the sheer scale of it.
Over 260,000 accounts were found to have been involved
with the Nth Rooms.
And while some reports claim that
the number was narrowed down to roughly 60,000
due to overlapping profiles,
these numbers still remain disturbing.
Keep in mind, Telegram is not this super-secret app
that only criminals know about.
This was a full-on sex trafficking ring
basically conducting itself in plain daylight,
and if it weren't for those two journalism students,
it's possible that this would never have come to light.
Given the inherent anonymity associated with this case,
it's tough to break down the exact demographic data
for customers of the Nth Room.
But according to Team Flame, their investigation concluded
that roughly half of users came from Korea,
with the other half being international users
from all over the globe.
To make matters even worse, these customers were known
to also be regular contributors to the chat rooms,
many of them posting their own abusive content,
completely free of charge.
Mind you, this was not content involving
their own self-abuse, but rather the abuse of others,
including their own young family members.
Now, based on everything I just described,
you're probably picturing these people
as being complete monsters, and while that's obviously true,
they aren't exactly easy to spot.
Most of them are likely as unassuming as The Doctor was
in his day-to-day life.
Four members of the Nth Rooms, for example,
were uncovered to be a full-time teachers,
ranging from elementary all the way to high school.
And as if that wasn't horrifying enough,
it doesn't stop there.
It's said that everyone from professors,
to celebrities, and CEOs were amongst the list of customers
who frequented the Nth Rooms,
and while their names have never been outed,
if this is true, it would make this case
even more horrifying, as if it wasn't enough already.
To many, points like these only serve to solidify the fact
that the Nth Rooms ultimately shine a light
on a deeper societal issue.
I started out this video by talking about Telegram,
and the internet, and how it can be abused for evil.
And while it's true that this isn't the first time
that Telegram has found itself in the crossfire
of criminal activity, it can't solely be to blame
for the Nth Rooms' existence.
In the end, Cho, as a ringleader of the Nth Rooms,
was sentenced to 40 years in prison,
and while many were disappointed that he didn't receive
a life sentence, it may surprise you to hear that
40 years is actually on the extreme end
for a crime like this.
Other co-conspirators and operators of the Nth Rooms
got lesser sentences, which on the surface would make sense,
due to their lesser involvement.
But one, for example, was only sentenced to one year.
A 2020 article by Nikkei Asia outlines the scope
of this problem, explaining, quote,
"Digital sex crimes in South Korea,
"even those targeting children, are notorious
"for attracting light sentences.
"Under Korean law, producers of child porn can receive
"up to a life sentence, but in reality,
"the average was only two years in 2017.
"Son Jong-woo, the creator of one of the world's
"most notorious child porn websites,
"received 18 months in jail."
Now, that's obviously absurd in and of itself,
but what about the penalty for those buying
said illegal material?
Well, according to Al Jazeera, in April of this year,
the Korean government passed several laws
barring the possession, purchase, storage,
or viewing of illegally filmed sexual content.
And yes, you heard that right.
Prior to 2020, there actually weren't any specific laws
against said material, so long as it didn't involve minors,
meaning that the majority of the Nth Room victims
would never have a way to go after the customers
who paid to see them abused.
While these new laws are a much needed step
in the right direction, there's no denying that
there's a major issue here,
and the unfortunate, even tragic, truth is that
the majority of those involved in the Nth Room scandal
will never see any consequences for their actions,
and unless they end up caught hurting someone else,
they'll likely continue to roam free amongst us.
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Again, thank you guys so much for your contributions,
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especially if you're listening right now.
That's really weird.
Anyway, with all of that said,
thank you so much, and I'll see you all again soon.
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