Meta Platforms’ Facebook and Instagram have served thousands of ads for AI “nudify” apps in breach of the company’s policies, delivered by one of its few advertising partners in China, according to the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project.
Beijing-based GatherOne, which connects Chinese firms seeking to advertise on Meta’s social media services with the U.S. company, has been responsible in recent months for some 7,600 ads for mobile apps that can transpose women’s faces onto naked bodies and create sexualized videos, the agency said in a new report. It singled out an app, created in China, that allows for the sharing of material some users have flagged as child pornography.
Meta’s rules prohibit sexually suggestive ads or those for apps that purport to strip the persons depicted. But TTP’s work, which aims to hold Big Tech companies to account, shows repeated failures from the likes of Apple and Alphabet to curb such apps. Regulators, victims and their families around the world have been calling on tech firms to do more to combat so-called deepfake porn services.