When Ming* found a hidden camera in her bedroom, she prayed for a reasonable explanation, wondering whether her boyfriend had placed it there to record memories of their “happy life” together. But hope quickly turned to horror. Ming’s boyfriend had been secretly taking sexually exploitative photos of not just Ming and her female friends, but also of other women in other locations, then using AI technology to generate pornographic images of them.
After Ming confronted him, he “begged for mercy” but became angry when she refused to forgive him, Ming reportedly told Chinese news outlet Jimu News.
Ming is just one of many women in China who have been covertly photographed or filmed – both in private and public spaces, including toilets – by voyeurs who have then circulated or sold the images online without consent. The sexually explicit pictures – often taken using pinhole cameras hidden in ordinary objects – are then shared online in massive groups.
The scandal has left China reeling and raised questions about the government’s ability – and willingness – to crack down on such behaviour.
One such group on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, is named “MaskPark tree hole forum” and reportedly had more than 100,000 mostly male members.
“The MaskPark incident exposes the extreme vulnerability of Chinese women in digital spaces,” Li Maizi, a prominent Chinese feminist now based in New York, told the Guardian.
“What’s even more insidious and shocking is the prevalence of perpetrators known to the victims: partners, boyfriends, even fathers committing sexual violence against underage girls.”
The scandal has sparked fury on Chinese social media and triggered discussions on the challenges of combating online harassment in the country. Although Chinese regulators have the power to clamp down on sexual harassment and abuse online, the system is currently focused on restricting the flow of information deemed politically sensitive, says Eric Liu, a former content moderator at the Chinese social platform Weibo who is now a US-based editor at China Digital Times.
Since the scandal broke, Liu has seen “large-scale” censorship of the MaskPark incident on the Chinese internet, where posts seen as having a social impact – including feminist content – are often scrubbed by censors.
“If the Chinese government wanted to shut down the groups, they definitely could,” Liu says, referring to previous cases of Chinese authorities infiltrating online spaces overseas. “The scale of [MaskPark] is massive. I can’t think of a similar incident of this scale in recent years.
But Liu says he is not surprised. “There’s always been this type of content on the Chinese internet.”
In China, those who are found guilty of distributing pornographic content can be sentenced to up to two years in prison, while people who take photos without the subject’s consent can be detained for up to 10 days and fined. The country also has regulations protecting people against sexual harassment, domestic violence and cyber-abuse.
But advocates say the current legal framework is insufficient. Often the burden falls on victims to gather evidence to build their cases, which can be difficult to do for crimes that take place online, according to Xirui*, a Chinese lawyer in Beijing who specialises in cases of gender-based harm.
“The behaviour itself also needs to meet certain elements of the crime, such as a specified number of clicks and subjective motives,” Xirui says.
“There’s also the problem of the statute of limitations, which is only six months for public security cases. Once that’s exceeded, the police will not file the case.”
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The Guardian contacted China’s ministry of foreign affairs for comment.
Beyond the legal hurdles, victims of crimes of a sexual nature often grapple with shame, which prevents many from speaking out.
“I’ve seen similar cases where landlords install cameras to spy on female tenants. This type of situation is generally treated as a privacy violation, subject to administrative detention, with victims seeking civil compensations,” Xirui says.
To tackle the problem, the government could implement more specialised legislation, improve gender-based training of law enforcement officials and encourage courts to issue guidance that includes examples of relevant cases, the lawyer says.
For Li, the recent incident reveals a widespread tolerance and lack of meaningful law enforcement on the issue in China. Rather than tackling the proliferation of sexist and abusive content online, authorities appear more focused on detaining female writers of homoerotic fiction and censoring victims of digital abuse, she says.
“With the rise of deepfake technologies and rapid online circulation of surreptitiously filmed content, women’s bodies are being digitally exploited at an unprecedented scale,” Li says. “But I believe if authorities are truly willing, and invest the necessary resources, it’s entirely possible to trace and prosecute these crimes. We need to hold the Chinese government accountable.”
* Names have been changed
Additional research by Lillian Yang and Jason Tzu Kuan Lu