Apple has removed a number of AI image generation apps from its App Store after 404 Media found these apps advertised the ability to create nonconsensual deepfake nude images.
Emanuel Maiberg for 404 Media:
Overall, Apple removed three apps from the App Store, but only after we provided the company with links to the specific apps and their related ads, indicating the company was not able to find the apps that violated its policy itself.
Apple’s action comes after we reported on Monday that Instagram advertises nonconsensual AI nude apps. By browsing Meta’s Ad Library, which archives ads on its platform, when they ran, on what platforms, and who paid for them, we were able to find ads for five different apps, each with dozens of ads. Two of the ads were for web-based services, and three were for apps on the Apple App Store. Meta deleted the ads when we flagged them. Apple did not initially respond to a request for comment on that story, but reached out to me after it was published asking for more information. On Tuesday, Apple told us it removed the three apps on its App Store.
Removing the ads for these apps, and the apps themselves, is significant because much of the worst harms we’ve seen as a result of generative AI don’t take place on the dark corners of the internet, but on these giant, mainstream platforms.
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MacDailyNews Note: In March, two Florida middle schoolers were arrested and charged under a 2022 Florida law for allegedly creating AI-generated deepfake nudes of classmates.
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Apple is being stupid. It’s none of their business how people use the apps. You can use image apps to paste someone’s head on someone else’s nude body. You can use a word processor to write a book containing foul ideas. You can use the camera to take up-skirt videos. And so on…
Leave people alone, you Apple fusspots.
You might change your mind if you were targeted with online harassment and misinformation.