Anger is escalating on Chinese social media following reports of online groups, allegedly comprising hundreds of thousands of Chinese men, sharing explicit photographs of women taken without their consent. The encrypted messaging app Telegram hosts a group called 'MaskPark tree hole forum', which the Chinese newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily reported had over 100,000 members, all Chinese men.
The group reportedly shared sexually explicit images captured in intimate settings or via hidden 'pinhole cameras' concealed in everyday items like plug sockets and shoes. The scandal has drawn comparisons to South Korea's 'Nth Room' case, where women were blackmailed into sharing explicit photos on Telegram.
Telegram is blocked in China but accessible via virtual private networks (VPNs). Hashtags related to the scandal garnered over 11 million views on Weibo by Thursday, though some searches were censored, returning messages that content could not be shown due to laws and regulations. Reuters reported earlier that associated hashtags had received over 270 million views.
Outrage has been voiced on platforms like Xiaohongshu (RedNote), where one user wrote: 'A woman’s life is not a man’s erotic novel.' Another user stated: 'So scary! After seeing this, I’ve decided if the MaskPark incident isn’t properly addressed, I’ll never get married or have kids.'
Under Chinese law, taking pictures without consent carries a penalty of up to 10 days' detention and a 500 yuan (£53) fine, while disseminating pornographic material can lead to up to two years in prison. Critics argue these penalties are insufficient. Last year, a Beijing tech boss who secretly recorded over 10,000 videos of female employees in the bathroom was detained for only 10 days, prompting a Weibo user to comment: 'Ten days is nothing short of encouragement.'
Tsinghua University criminal law professor Lao Dongyan noted that Chinese law treats the dissemination of secretly-filmed material as an obscenity offence rather than a violation of women's rights. 'The women who were secretly filmed are the primary victims. Simply treating them as obscene materials is tantamount to treating them as the parties involved in pornographic works. This is absurd,' she wrote on Weibo.
