Police are working to solve the “Public Room” case that has raised the Macedonian public on its feet and is expected to come up with concrete information soon. The Ministry of Interior said that on Saturday they went in search of this group that communicates on the encrypted communication app Telegram and that the codename of the administrator was “Medo” and that it was documented by the IT department.
According to what was reported last night and confirmed today by the police, but in the interest of the investigation will not publish any information and in cooperation with the Public Prosecutor’s Office take all necessary measures to solve the case. The police tracked down the Administrator of the Public Room group, and provided telephone numbers of over seven thousand members, reports TV Telma from sources of the Ministry of Interior. In the group formed on the communications app Telegram, photographs of underage girls with almost pornographic content were exchanged.
High school students and adults shared and commented on intimate photos and videos of underage girls in the country. The group of over 7000 members has been renamed from Public Room to Adults Only last night.
Unofficially, this group includes former senior officials, café managers, journalists, businessmen, etc. After the group was published in the media, 600 members left it immediately.
News portal A1on.mk managed to get in touch with the group administrator.
“We wanted to make a group of videos and fun clips that in no way contained pornography. And we did it, it was a group of funny videos and we pointed out that it was for members over 18, because everyone under 18 has Instagram. It was a private group that you can’t find through a search engine unless someone added you and it still does. But one administrator added one member, another added a third, so the group had nearly 500 members in two days, and no personal data was requested from the group’s leaders, as this would violate Article 149 of the Personal Data Protection Act. So I decided to delete the group, according to the Telegram’s exact instructions”, the administrator told A1on.mk, whose identity the portal said it did not know.
He further explains that he was trying to delete it, but links were constantly coming in and the group was growing faster, but there was also pornographic content. He thought that when something was erased that it was permanent, but his expectations were wrong, as the group was renewed and expanded, and with all the content available, it still reached 5,000 members.
The administrator also deleted his Telegram account, but that didn’t help, the group expanded to 7,000 members.
The article states that all administrators have been removed from the group and that it now operates by itself and has about 4700 members. They are now negotiating and moving to a new platform called Discord, where they plan to continue their “activities”. The work went out of control and photos and experiences of various narcotics were shared.
The question arises whether this group can be closed, given that the Telegram app is stationed in another country.
The Public Security Bureau on today’s meeting sets out tactical measures for the investigation into the Telegram app group that shared pornographic photos of underage girls from Macedonia. The investigation is in the hands of the cybercrime and digital forensics department at the MoI.
Macedonian police have reached out to the Dubai-based Telegram mobile application service to erase a “Public Room” group that shared pornographic material from minors, including their phone numbers and sexist comments. The contents are disturbing and vulgar. The group’s administrator used a photo of a minor while presenting himself on the communications app similar to Viber.
