Apple pulls AI ‘nudify’ app promoted in Meta ads

WIRED reports that Meta ran ads for a now-pulled App Store app that let users create AI-generated pornographic deepfakes of real people, with one of the ads featuring a woman resembling a prominent US politician. Here are the details.

Apple says app added prohibited features after review

According to WIRED, Meta ran a campaign for an app that promoted itself as “the AI that men actually use,” and in one of the ads showed an AI-generated pornographic deepfake of a woman closely resembling a prominent female US politician.

From WIRED:

The tool, which is called Kromix, bills itself as an “AI image styler.” A voice-over for one of the video advertisements, viewed by WIRED, promotes the tool as having “no restrictions,” saying “all the characters are real people” and describing it as “the AI that men actually use.” In one ad, a woman closely resembling a prominent female US politician is seen in front of a US flag and the flag of the president of the US above the caption “What if she moved?” She then winks, before the ad cuts to a scene of a woman with the same face performing in a pornographic video.

The report notes that both companies took action after WIRED reached out for comment: Apple removed the app from the App Store, while Meta took down the campaign, which had run 32 ads exclusively targeted at male users.

In its reply to WIRED, Apple stressed that Kromix appeared to have added the prohibited content and features after passing the App Store’s initial review. The company also said:

“We have always strictly prohibited apps designed to generate, distribute, or consume pornography. […] ‘Nudification’ apps are against our App Review Guidelines and we aggressively work to identify and remove apps—as well as the developer accounts behind them—that attempt to evade our processes and policies.”

Apple’s points are similar to the comments it offered just last month, when San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu demanded that the company remove eight “nudify” apps from the App Store.

Back to WIRED’s report, it notes that Kromix isn’t the only app of this kind that Apple has recently removed after being contacted by the publication.

In a separate investigation, WIRED found that several problematic ads on Meta linked to MaskAI, an App Store app that similarly allowed users to upload photos and face-swap people into sexual situations. Apple also removed that app after WIRED reached out for comment.

To read WIRED’s full report, follow this link.

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