Today, the Tech Transparency Project released a report concluding that “nudify” apps are widely available and easily found on the App Store and Google’s Play Store. Here are the details.
Some nudifying apps even advertise on the App Store
While Grok has recently drawn attention for AI-generated nonconsensual sexualized images, including cases involving minors, the problem itself is not new.
In fact, the problem obviously predates generative AI, as traditional image-editing tools have long enabled the creation of this kind of abusive content. What has changed over the past couple of years is the scale and the fact that the barrier to generating such images in seconds is now near-nonexistent.
Unsurprisingly, many apps have spent the past few years attempting to capitalize on this new capability, with some openly advertising it.
All of this happened while Apple fought Epic Games and other app developers in antitrust lawsuits, where Apple insisted that part of the reason it charges up to 30% in commissions is to make the App Store safer through automated and manual app review systems.
And while Apple does work to prevent fraud, abuse, and other violations of the App Store guidelines, sometimes apps and entire app categories can fall through the cracks. Just last year, 9to5Mac highlighted a large number of apps purporting (or heavily suggesting) to be OpenAI’s Sora 2 app, some of which charged steep weekly subscription fees.
Now, given the renewed attention that Grok brought to AI-powered nudifying tools, the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) has published a report detailing how they easily found undressing apps in the App Store and on Google Play.
From the report:
The apps identified by TTP have been collectively downloaded more than 705 million times worldwide and generated $117 million in revenue, according to AppMagic, an app analytics firm. Because Google and Apple take a cut of that revenue, they are directly profiting from the activity of these apps. Google and Apple are offering these apps despite their apparent violation of app store policies. The Google Play Store prohibits “depictions of sexual nudity, or sexually suggestive poses in which the subject is nude” or “minimally clothed.” It also bans apps that “degrade or objectify people, such as apps that claim to undress people or see through clothing, even if labeled as prank or entertainment apps.”
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