Meta sues company behind AI “nudifying” apps in landmark legal action

Meta has filed a lawsuit against the company behind CrushAI apps for promoting “nudifying” applications on Facebook and Instagram, marking its most aggressive legal action yet against AI-powered non-consensual intimate image creation. The lawsuit follows a months-long battle to remove thousands of ads promoting apps that use artificial intelligence to create fake nude images without consent, highlighting the platform’s struggle to combat this growing form of digital abuse.

What you should know: Meta’s legal action targets a company that persistently evaded advertising restrictions through sophisticated workarounds.

• In January, researchers found 8,010 instances of CrushAI ads promoting nudifying apps across Facebook and Instagram platforms.
• The company repeatedly created new domain names to replace banned ones, forcing Meta into what it described as a “cat-and-mouse battle” over several months.
• Meta has developed new technology designed to identify such ads even when they don’t explicitly show nudity.

The big picture: The surge in AI-generated non-consensual intimate imagery has become a pervasive online safety issue requiring coordinated industry response.

• The growth of generative AI has led to a significant increase in “nudifying” apps in recent years.
• England’s children’s commissioner called on the government in April to introduce legislation banning these apps altogether.
• It is already illegal to create or possess AI-generated sexual content featuring children.

Industry collaboration: Meta has begun sharing threat intelligence with other tech companies to combat the broader problem.

• Since late March, Meta has provided more than 3,800 unique URLs to participating tech companies.
• This information-sharing initiative aims to help other platforms identify and block similar problematic content.

Broader AI abuse concerns: Nudifying apps represent just one category of AI-powered problematic content on social media platforms.

• Meta faces ongoing challenges with AI-generated deepfakes used for celebrity scams and misinformation.
• The company’s Oversight Board criticized a decision in June to leave up a Facebook post showing an AI-manipulated video appearing to feature Brazilian football legend Ronaldo Nazário.
• Meta requires political advertisers to declare AI use due to concerns about deepfakes’ impact on elections.

What they’re saying: “This legal action underscores both the seriousness with which we take this abuse and our commitment to doing all we can to protect our community from it,” Meta said in a blog post.

• “We’ll continue to take the necessary steps – which could include legal action – against those who abuse our platforms like this.”