“2024 Miss Korea” Comes Under Fire For Inappropriate “Deepfake” Question
South Korea has been grappling with a growing number of sexual crimes involving AI-generated deepfakes. Amidst this crisis, the 2024 Miss Korea pageant has received immense backlash for asking an insensitive question about the topic.
On September 24, during a question-answer round of the pageant, all of the contestants were asked, “If I look more attractive in a deepfake video, how can I bridge the gap between that and the real me?”
Viewers were immediately uncomfortable with the implications of the question and flocked to the Miss Korea Instagram account to bombard them with questions and criticism. Most objected to the way the question seemed to trivialize deepfake sexual crimes and portray them as merely an issue of beauty standards.
Initially, netizens noticed that Miss Korea was deleting comments asking for answers from the organizers, and the account later limited its comments as well. It wasn’t until September 26 that Global E&B Co., the organizer of the pageant, posted an official apology on Instagram. They offered an explanation in the apology, stating that by “deepfake,” what they intended to imply was pictures or videos created through AI that alter someone’s digital appearance significantly. But they acknowledged their mistake in choosing the wrong word, especially given the current havoc that deepfake has wreaked in South Korea.
The question was posed to hear the contestants’ thoughts on the current state of affairs where AI virtual technology is widely used in movies, advertisements, education, etc., but considering the current reality where ‘deepfake’ is being abused for illegal sexual videos, we should have been much more careful with the question.
— Global E&B Co.
The organizers apologized to the viewers and the contestants who were uncomfortable with the question and promised to be more careful in the future.
