Despite strict advertising bans on non-consensual sexual content, tens of thousands of deepfake nudify ads slipped through Meta's moderation systems across both platforms.
Meta has a rule against advertising apps that generate non-consensual nude imagery. Meta’s own platforms apparently didn’t get the memo.
Investigations have revealed that Facebook and Instagram ran thousands of ads promoting AI-powered “nudify” applications, tools that use artificial intelligence to digitally strip clothing from photos of real people without their consent. The scale is staggering: over 87,000 ads linked to a single company, Joy Timeline HK Limited’s CrushAI app, were found spread across more than 135 Facebook pages.
The scope of the problem #
At least 170 business accounts were involved in pushing these nudify app ads, primarily targeting users in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and Germany.
A CBS News investigation surfaced hundreds of ads for deepfake nudify tools running on both Facebook and Instagram. The ads promoted apps that promise users the ability to generate fake nude images of anyone from a single clothed photo, a technology that has been overwhelmingly weaponized against women and, in several high-profile cases, teenage girls.
Meta fights back, sort of #
On June 12, 2025, Meta filed a lawsuit against Joy Timeline HK Limited in Hong Kong, alleging the company repeatedly violated advertising policies despite previous enforcement actions dating back to 2023.
That timeline is worth pausing on. Meta had been aware of and taking enforcement actions against this particular advertiser since 2023. The ads kept coming. For roughly two years, the cat-and-mouse game continued before Meta escalated to litigation.
The company also launched a broader initiative in March 2025, sharing over 3,800 unique URLs of violating nudify apps with other tech companies through the Lantern program. The idea is collaborative defense: if Meta identifies a bad actor, Google, Apple, and other platforms can preemptively block the same URLs.
Reports from September 2025 identified an additional 4,215 nudify ads still active on Meta platforms since June 11. That’s thousands of new violations discovered after the lawsuit was filed.
Why this matters beyond Meta #
The business model is straightforward and deeply troubling. Developers build AI models trained to generate realistic nude images from clothed photos. They then use mainstream advertising platforms to acquire users. The platforms collect ad fees. The victims, overwhelmingly women and girls whose photos are used without consent, have essentially no recourse.
Multiple US states have passed or are considering legislation targeting deepfake pornography, and federal lawmakers have introduced bills aimed at the same problem. Every ad that runs on Meta’s platforms for these services is potential evidence in future regulatory proceedings.
The 87,000 ads from a single nudify app company represent a non-trivial amount of ad spend flowing through Meta’s systems.
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