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Thousands of ads for “nudify” apps on Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram have been traced back to GatherOne, one of Meta’s 11 Chinese advertising partners, according to a report published on Sunday by the Tech Transparency Project.
Nudify apps give users the AI tools to digitally remove clothing from photos of people, typically women and children, placing their faces in nonconsensual, pornographic images and videos. One of the advertised apps had Google Play reviews alerting others to what one reviewer called “illegal child porn.”
The ads themselves featured women simulating sex acts.
Meta’s community standards state that it doesn’t allow the promotion of nudify apps. Its advertising standards say that objectionable content includes ads that contain nudity, sexually suggestive activities or depictions of people in explicit or sexually suggestive positions.
TTP’s research also found that many of these ads appeared to come from fake accounts. This further violates Meta’s ad standards, which prohibit advertisers from using “inauthentic assets” to deceive Meta or its users about their identity.
Meta and GatherOne’s responses
Because Facebook and Instagram are banned in China, the Chinese government and Meta reached a compromise: Chinese advertisers must use a handpicked third-party agency, such as GatherOne, to run ads on these social media platforms.
While TTP was investigating the ads and the accounts behind them, it noticed that Meta had removed many of them.
“We do not allow non-consensual intimate imagery or nudify apps on our platform and we take aggressive steps to combat them: blocking links to sites that host this content, restricting related search terms, removing over 340,000 violating ads late last year alone and, when appropriate, taking legal action,” Cindy Southworth, Meta’s head of women’s safety policy, said in a statement provided to CNET. “Because confronting these persistent bad actors is an industry-wide challenge, we also proactively share information through Lantern so other platforms can act.”
Lantern is a Tech Coalition program that allows tech companies to share signals about child sexual abuse material, grooming manuals and other illegal content.
However, TTP said GatherOne’s accounts are still advertising, acknowledging that because the marketing agency generates so many ads — over 30,000 per month — Meta may be struggling to remove them all. While Meta’s ad review process includes multiple layers of analysis and detection, some of these occur only after an ad goes live.
Following publication of the report, GatherOne told TTP that it “suspended new ad account applications related to AI nudify, face swap and girlfriend services,” and told Bloomberg that it’s “undertaking a comprehensive compliance upgrade to address the technical evolution of synthetic [AI] media.”
In 2024, Meta reported that it generated $18.35 billion in China revenue, which accounted for 11% of its global revenue. Referencing Meta’s internal documents, Reuters said in December 2025 that more than $3 billion, or about 19%, of that 2024 China revenue came from ads for pornography, illegal gambling and other banned content.
What Meta is doing to address nudify apps
In a news release published by Meta in June 2025, the company said it’s taking action against nudify apps, stating that it filed a lawsuit in Hong Kong against Joy Timeline HK Limited, the company behind CrushAI, to prevent it from advertising on Meta’s platforms. Joy Timeline HK Limited isn’t one of Meta’s Chinese advertising partners.
Along with stating that it’s building new technology that can detect nudify app ads, Meta said in its release that it will “continue to take the necessary steps — which could include legal action — against those who abuse our platforms like this.”
In a March 2026 integrity report, Meta said that it removed 344,000 ads promoting nudify apps on Instagram and Facebook between November 2025 and January 2026. Cease-and-desist letters were sent to 46 companies that advertised these apps, but the company names aren’t listed.
“GatherOne works with companies across the internet, including Google, TikTok and X,” Ryan Daniels, Meta spokesperson, said in a statement sent to CNET. “All advertisers have to comply with our advertising standards, and failure to comply with our policies and standards can lead to the cancellation of ads placed, financial penalties and termination of ad accounts.”
Yet, while many of GatherOne’s ads were taken down, no action has been taken against GatherOne to prevent it from posting explicit or nudify app ads. A GatherOne representative didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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