Meta ran 7,600 China-linked AI nudify ads, report says

Facebook and Instagram carried roughly 7,600 ads over recent months for AI apps that digitally strip clothing from images of women, according to a new report from the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project, all placed through one of Meta's own approved advertising partners.

The ads have been posted via Beijing-based GatherOne Inc., which is an authorised Meta ad agency enabling Chinese companies to market themselves to overseas consumers using blocked platforms within China. Director of TTP Katie Paul pointed out that the results indicate that Meta is essentially letting GatherOne off the hook for advertising policies specifically forbidding sexually suggestive ads and apps which claim to be stripping people in images.

According to Meta’s Head of Women's Safety Policy, Cindy Southworth, the company does not permit the posting of non-consensual intimate images or nudify apps.

GatherOne stated that it operates on a zero-tolerance policy in terms of such content and is carrying out a compliance enhancement and has ceased accepting new advertising accounts for nudify and face-swap services.

One of the apps mentioned in the study was removed from Google Play on July 21, after GatherOne had permanently banned the advertiser's account access.

This is not Meta's first brush with the issue; the company sued a Hong Kong-based nudie app developer last year and has shared thousands of violating sites with other platforms through an industry tracking programme.

Separately, a George Mason University survey found more than half of 557 surveyed US teenagers had used nudification tools on themselves or others, with researcher Chad Steel noting many teens can already reach these apps directly through messaging platforms regardless of what app stores or social networks do.

The Take It Down Act, signed into law last year, criminalises the publication of non-consensual sexual imagery and requires platforms to remove it, with the Federal Trade Commission beginning enforcement in May.