The five submitted articles reflect Indicator’s sustained, impactful coverage of AI nudifiers and synthetic nonconsensual intimate imagery. These abusive AI tools allow anyone to turn a single photo of a person into a realistic pornographic image or video without their consent.
Nudifiers are used by millions of people around the world to abuse women and girls. Six percent of Americans aged 13-17 surveyed by Thorn said they were targeted by deepfake nudes. UNICEF estimates that as many as 1.2 million children in 11 countries have been victimized by nonconsensual sexual deepfakes.
The included coverage highlights how the operators of AI nudifier apps and sites use a variety of deceptive tactics and explicit content to attract users, and how they often market their products as a way to undress and sexually exploit real women and girls. The selected coverage includes:
Exposing the scourge of nudifiers and the failure of platforms like Meta to prevent them from placing tens of thousands of AI-infused ads.
A detailed, first-of-its-kind analysis of the tech infrastructure that underpins this abusive form of AI, and an estimate of their revenue.
A deep analysis of the countermeasures necessary to combat the deepfake nudes epidemic. These include technical countermeasures like filtering a model’s training data and socio-technical interventions like warning users who are searching for content related to nonconsensual synthetic nudes.
The revelation that a venture-backed US startup that partnered with PUMA and Roblox ran ads that encouraged users to upload images of other people and dress them in sexually suggestive outfits. It also ran a website with a prominent “Undress” button that could instantly depict anyone in underwear or lingerie.
An early report that flagged how AI nudifier apps expanded their services to begin generating nonconsensual pornographic videos of uploaded images.
Ahead of publication, we contacted the platforms we monitor to seek comment and clarification. Throughout our reporting on AI nudifiers we have never had a company push back on our findings. Instead, they typically move quickly to remove all of the ads, apps, and other nudifier content that we have detected. This is a validation of the rigor of our work — a two-person publication consistently finds abusive material that billion-dollar companies miss.
