中文導讀
「N號房」事件震驚韓國。罪犯對受害者實施性虐待，並把犯罪過程發布到「閱後即焚」式聊天群，而聊天群訂閱用戶達二十多萬人。500萬民眾網上請願，要求警方徹查此事。韓國總統文在寅表示，對涉案者嚴懲不貸。但僅僅消除網絡性虐待材料的傳播，並不能改變韓國對性犯罪的容忍態度和根深蒂固的厭女文化。
Yet another sex scandal provokes national outrage「FIRST HE JUST asked for a picture of my body, but then he asked if I could send one that showed my face...and then he asked me to play with myself...to use school supplies,」 the girl told a local radio show on the morning of March 24th. She went on to describe a weeks-long ordeal during which she sent more than 40 graphic videos to a man she feared would publicly humiliate her if she stopped complying. 「He had all my personal information...I was afraid he would threaten me with that if I quit.」The girl was a middle-school student at the time of the alleged incident two years ago. She is only one of dozens of apparent victims in the latest sexual-abuse scandal to rock South Korea.
On the same day that she described her plight, police revealed the identity of the man who stands accused of running a range of porn channels, known as 「nth rooms」 on the Telegram chat app, charging up to 30,000 subscribers between $200 and $1,200 (most of that, it seems, collected in bitcoin to avoid detection) for access to graphic sexual content extorted from young women and under-age girls. Cho Jubin (pictured), a 24-year-old graduate and former college-newspaper editor who called himself baksa, or 「doctor」, was named after 2.5m South Koreans signed a petition clamouring for his identity to be made public. Almost 2m people signed a separate petition demanding that the police also identify all the subscribers to the channels. Authorities say they have counted more than a quarter of a million subscribers across chat rooms featuring extorted videos, footage from spy-cams and deepfake pornography.
The case has caused particular outrage owing to the youth of many of the victims. Subscribers knew this only too well: descriptions of some channels featured personal details of the girls, including where they went to school. Public anger has eclipsed even the reaction to the 「Burning Sun」 scandal, which rocked the glamorous K-pop scene last year when it emerged that several stars had been complicit in producing abusive content and sharing it in online chatrooms.
The authorities are keen to be seen to be cracking down hard. So far they have detained 19 men, including Mr Cho. Dozens more are under investigation. Even South Korea’s president, despite being busy with covid-19, has become involved to reassure people that justice will prevail. Moon Jae-in vowed to take a stern approach to digital sexual-abuse crimes, calling the offenders 「cruel」 and public fury 「justified」.
But it remains to be seen whether all the public hand-wringing will result in justice for the victims, many of them vulnerable girls with troubled family histories or financial difficulties. Activists have long complained of South Korea’s sketchy record on prosecuting sexual abuse and the misogyny entrenched in the law, which still regards being drunk as a valid defence for those accused of rape. Anger ran high last week when prosecutors recommended a sentence of only three and a half years for a chat-room host in a similar case. And even with the best of intentions, attempting to stamp out the distribution of abusive material online can be a wild-goose chase, as perpetrators shift from one anonymous platform to the next.
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Mar 28th 2020 | Asia | 555 words
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本文標題中的"naming and shaming" 如何理解？其實這裡用到了 name and shame 這一表達， 意思是「點名通報，點名批評"。英文解釋如下：ay publicly who is responsible for something illegal that has happened, or who has not achieved a particular standard. 如：The government will also name and shame the worst performing airlines. 政府還將曝光業績最差的航空公司。結合文章內容，此標題即可譯為「千夫所指」。
(查看本文更多講解，歡迎掃下方二維碼報名經濟學人閱讀訓練營，詞彙量過八千方可參加，詞彙量低於八千請移步☞詞彙訓練營)
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本文全文摘選自The Economist(28th Mar 2020)，僅供個人學習交流使用。歡迎轉發至朋友圈。
@新英文雜誌團隊
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