Chinese men share partners' intimate photos on Telegram, backlash erupts
What's the story
A shocking scandal has rocked China, with reports of men sharing intimate photos and videos of their girlfriends without consent. The act, which was primarily carried out on the messaging app Telegram, has sparked widespread outrage and calls for stricter measures against such non-consensual pornography. The issue came to light when a woman discovered her photos had been shared in a Telegram forum with over 100,000 users.
Forum exposure
Group was also sharing content related to wives
The Telegram forum, which was primarily used by Chinese men, was not only a platform for sharing private photos of their girlfriends but also ex-girlfriends and wives. The revelation of this group has led to an outpouring of outrage online. "We are not... 'content' that can be randomly uploaded, viewed and fantasized about," one user wrote on Red Note, a Chinese social media platform similar to Instagram.
Impact
Despite being banned in China, Telegram is accessible through VPN
A related hashtag has garnered over 230 million views on Weibo since last week. The largest group, Mask Park, has been taken down but smaller spinoffs remain active. Despite being banned in China, Telegram is still accessible through a virtual private network (VPN). "The sharing of nonconsensual pornography is explicitly forbidden by Telegram's terms of service and is removed whenever discovered," the company said in a statement to AFP.
International parallels
Women's rights remain a sensitive issue in China
The incident has drawn comparisons to South Korea's "Nth Room" case, where a man blackmailed dozens of women into taking sexually explicit videos and sold them on Telegram. Chinese women have also shared their own experiences of being filmed and photographed by men in public. Despite police cracking down on illegal filming in 2022, women's rights remain a sensitive issue in China with independent feminist activism largely suppressed over the last decade.