A screen on Discord where child pornography is being bought and sold A breeding ground for child pornography “I wanted to see naked girls and their breasts.” “(The images) were like treasure, so it felt wasteful to dispose of them.” These are part of the motives stated by a 27-year-old male teacher in Okayama City who has been arrested four times on suspicion of secretly filming videos of underage girls changing clothes and sharing some of the footage in a group chat. The man was a member of a community called the “Voyeur Teacher Group” that had been set up on a highly confidential social media app. In this group, voyeuristic images of underage girls were shared daily, and it is believed that more than 20 girls were victimized. Last year, seven men believed to be members of the group were arrested on suspicion of violating the Child Prostitution and Child Pornography Prohibition Law and the law punishing the filming of sexual images, among other charges. Then, on January 21, a 32-year-old junior high school teacher in Ibaraki Prefecture was also arrested for providing the group with a secretly filmed video of a girl changing clothes. The case has still not been brought to an end. It is nauseating that they used their positions as teachers to prey on their own students and turn them into objects of their desires, but this series of incidents is only the tip of the iceberg. In the vast and unfathomable ocean of the internet, an uncountable amount of child pornography is drifting. ≪C and K available≫ ≪Calling all who like little girls!!≫ Such posts are flying around on the message boards of adult communities on the U.S.-based community SNS “Discord.” These posts contain links, and by clicking them you are led to yet another community. On Discord, interaction takes place in user-created communities called servers and the channels (≈ message boards) within them. The user who establishes a server is given significant authority as its administrator, including approving other users’ participation and granting viewing and posting rights. For that reason, there are many communities made up of users who are tightly bound by specific interests or purposes. When the service began in the United States in 2015, “Discord” spread mainly as a means of communication among game enthusiasts. Now, with said to be over 500 million users, there are servers covering a wide range of genres, from programming and art to politics and philosophy. However, in Japan this “Discord” is being used as a “den for illegal pornographic content.” A reporter from the social affairs department of a major newspaper who covers child pornography reveals: “The photo and video posting app ‘Album Collection’ ended its service in January 2024. ‘Discord’ then became the new den for child pornography. No identity verification is required, and users can register anonymously. The image that the operating body is overseas and hard to crack down on is also a reason for its popularity. The operator has stated that it does not allow the posting of child pornography, but it cannot monitor the countless servers that exist, so in reality it is left unchecked.” I tried clicking several of the links in the posts that led to the child pornography–related servers mentioned earlier. I had heard that approval was required to join the servers, but most of them were not locked, and I was able to look inside. In the paid version “FRIDAY GOLD,” the horrifying reality of these child pornography communities is reported in detail. It also includes the obscene images of the girls that are actually being bought and sold.