Meta said Thursday that it’s suing an app maker that uses artificial intelligence to simulate nude images of real people who appear clothed in pictures.
Meta said it filed a lawsuit in Hong Kong against Joy Timeline HK Limited, the entity behind app CrushAI, to prevent it from advertising CrushAI apps on Meta platforms.
“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 statement. “We’ll continue to take necessary steps — which could include legal action — against those who abuse our platforms like this.”
The legal action comes after Joy Timeline made “multiple attempts” to circumvent Meta’s ad review process, Meta alleges.
Ads for so-called nudify apps have appeared on Meta’s Facebook and instagram platforms despite violating the social media sites’ advertising policies. CrushAI, which makes the apps, promoted AI tools that it says lets users upload photos and “see anyone naked,” a CBS News investigation found.
Meta has said the company bans “non-consensual intimate imagery” on its platforms. The company previously told CBS News that it has removed ads for nudify technology, deleted pages on its platforms that run the spots and permanently blocked websites associated with the apps.
Meta on Thursday said it will share information, including ad URLs, about entities that violate its policies with other techn companies through the Tech Coalition’s Lantern Program, which tracks behaviors that violate their child safety rules. Since March, Meta has provided the program with information on more than 3,800 sites that is shared with other tech companies, according to the company.
Meta said advertisers of nudify apps use various means to to avoid detection on its platforms, including by using inoffensive imagery to try to circumvent tech used to identify such ads on it sites. As a result, it has developed better technology to detect ads from nudify apps that are presented as benign, Meta said Thursday.
“We’ve worked with external experts and our own specialist teams to expand the list of safety-related terms, phrases and emojis that our systems are trained to detect with these ads,” Meta said.
contributed to this report.
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.
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