Deepfake revenge porn laws: a discussion lesson for Korean high schoolers who've already seen the headlines
A 50-minute debate lesson on criminalising AI-generated explicit images, built for high school students in Korea where the 2024 Telegram scandal made this a lived issue, not an abstract one.
Park English · 2026-08-30 · 4 min read
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In August 2024, Korean police reported over 800 cases of deepfake sexual abuse material shared on Telegram, most of it targeting middle and high school girls. The story ran on every news site your students scroll. By September, the National Assembly was drafting bills to raise maximum sentences from five years to life. Your class has opinions on this already — half of them formed before you walked in.
This lesson gives them fifty minutes of structured English to argue it out.
What the lesson covers
Students debate whether creating, sharing, or possessing AI-generated explicit images of real people should carry the same penalties as filming or distributing actual footage. The arguments split predictably: some will say the law should be identical because the harm to the victim is identical. Others will argue that because no physical act occurred, the crime is categorically different and the sentence should reflect that.
The shape of the debate matters less than the fact that they are using English to work through something they actually care about, with an adult who is not grading them on their opinion.
Why this works in a hagwon
Korean students are better at this than we expect. They have been taught to avoid confrontation in Korean, but English gives them distance. The language itself is the buffer. We have run this lesson six times in Gangnam and Bundang since September, and the longest silence so far has been four seconds.
The other reason it works: you are foreign. They know you were not here for the scandal, you do not have a daughter in the school two blocks over, and you are not going to phone their parents if they say something provocative. That removes ninety percent of the friction.
The structure
| Time | Activity | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 0–10 min | Framing | Put the scenario on the board. Keep it neutral. "AI program makes fake explicit photo of real person. No physical contact. Should the law treat this the same as secretly filming someone?" Do not editorialize. |
| 10–25 min | Small groups | Four students per group. Each group lists three arguments for harsher penalties and three for lighter ones. You circulate. When someone uses Korean, you ask them to try it in English. If they cannot, you give them the word. |
| 25–40 min | Whole-class debate | One student from each group presents their strongest argument. You write key phrases on the board as they talk. Let them respond to each other; jump in only to rephrase or when the logic breaks. |
| 40–50 min | Anonymous vote + reflection | Students write on a slip of paper: which punishment fits, and why, in two sentences. Collect them. Read three aloud with no names. Class votes on which argument was clearest. |
The line you need to draw
Before you start, say this plainly: "We are debating the law, not whether the crime is serious. Everyone in this room agrees it is serious. The question is what the punishment should be."
That sentence stops the debate from collapsing into performance. Without it, you get one student grandstanding about how terrible the crime is, and everyone else nods, and nothing gets said in English.
What to do when someone says the wrong thing
They will. Someone will compare this to something that is not comparable, or will minimize harm in a way that makes the room uncomfortable. When it happens, reframe it as a question to the class: "Minho just said X. Does everyone agree that is the same situation, or is something different?" Then step back. Let them correct him in English. They will.
Vocabulary you should pre-teach
Put these on the board before the lesson starts:
- consent (동의)
- distribute (유포하다)
- possession (소지)
- intent (의도)
- precedent (판례, 선례)
Do not spend fifteen minutes teaching vocab. Write the word, write the Korean next to it, give one example sentence, move on.
What happens after
Some students will want to keep talking. Let them, in the hallway, in English, for as long as they stay in English. That is the entire point of the exercise.
Others will shut down the moment the lesson ends and never mention it again. That is fine too. The work happened while they were speaking.