President Lee Jae Myung: "Sexually exploitative material will find no foothold in Korea"... Revenue structures of overseas illegal websites to be blocked at the source

[Financial News] President Lee Jae Myung, who is visiting the United States, has declared a strong commitment to eradicating digital sex crimes. "Inhumane sexually exploitative material will become as difficult to establish a foothold in the Republic of Korea as voice-phishing scams," he said. His remarks signal an all-out campaign to destroy the financial lifelines of overseas illegal websites, going beyond simply deleting individual posts.
On the 22nd, President Lee made the remarks while sharing an article about the achievements of the pan-government Integrated Support Team for Victims of Digital Sex Crimes on his X account, formerly Twitter. The report said that 66 overseas websites distributing illegal sexually exploitative material had suspended operations following pressure from the integrated support team on multiple fronts.
President Lee pointed to the limitations of past investigations, saying, "When criminal and judicial cooperation to shut down sexually exploitative-material websites was difficult, we had effectively left them unchecked whenever foreign governments refused to cooperate." He added, "We are now mobilizing every available means against clear illegal acts."
The government integrated support team has moved away from the passive practice of deleting illegal recordings one by one whenever they are discovered. Instead, it now tracks down and cuts off the revenue structures of the illegal websites distributing the material. This strategy of blocking their financial lifelines has proven effective, and the number of overseas illegal websites that had been difficult to detect has recently fallen sharply.
The government is taking additional steps to eradicate digital sex crimes at their roots. In addition to disabling the operating structures of overseas illegal websites, it plans to introduce a system that would authorize investigative agencies to directly access such websites and permanently delete the original files containing sexually exploitative material.
[email protected] Park Ji-hyun Reporter