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A shady Telegram group has sparked outrage in China after sexually exploitative images of Chinese women were shared in a group chat with hundreds of thousands of users.
A Chinese-language Telegram chat group named "MaskPark tree hole forum" shared images of women secretly taken or filmed in different locations.
The Chinese state-run newspaper Southern Daily first reported on the group in mid-September, with the story being picked up outside of China in recent days.
The group chat has more than 100,000 anonymous users in China and overseas, all of them are men, the newspaper said.
What was found in the Telegram group?
Some users shared private images of their current or ex-girlfriends and female family members, including mothers and daughters.
Some of the videos that had been secretly recorded with pinhole cameras in public spaces were being sold in the chat groups, the local Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
"My ex-boyfriend secretly took photos of me during sex, posted my private photos to the group without my permission and publicised my social media accounts," Reuters quoted an unnamed female victim, citing the Southern Daily.
Chatroom users also sold the tools, such as incense holders fitted with pinhole cameras, used to secretly film women, according to chat records published in the report.
Footage appeared to have been taken in a range of locations, including ultrasound rooms, public restrooms, subways and shopping malls, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily.
The paper said that the main group had been closed down by Sunday, but another group selling hidden cameras was still running.
The Guardian reported that hashtags connected to the scandal had been viewed over 11 million times on the social media app Weibo by Thursday. It appeared that some of the content was being censored.
Voyeurism chat group shocks China
Telegram is blocked by the Chinese government in China so users require a VPN to access the platform.
China also has strict laws and regularly deletes pornographic content from its heavily government-controlled internet, so the scale of the image sharing has shocked many in China.
"This has heightened the concerns of many women, as voyeuristic incidents seem to be ubiquitous," said Huang Simin, a Chinese lawyer who specializes in sexual violence cases.
Secret filming and photography offenses carry relatively light penalties if the content isn't considered obscene, with fines up to 500 yuan (€61, $69.68) and up to 10 days of administrative detention for serious cases, she added.
It is challenging for Chinese police to punish offenders over MaskPark because Telegram is encrypted and hosted overseas, said a Chinese legal researcher who requested anonymity.
"Criminal cases require a high evidence threshold, so disseminating intimate images often remains difficult to prosecute due to insufficient evidence," they said.
"There are no specific regulations regarding the dissemination of intimate images of adult women," they concluded.
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Edited by: Alex Berry
