AI app ads promoting 'objectification of women' banned by watchdog
The ad regulator said it had "zero-tolerance" for ads promoting AI tools that could sexualise or objectify women.
AI app adverts accused of promoting the “objectification of women” have been banned by a watchdog
A run of social media adverts for AI apps has been prohibited by a UK watchdog after it said they promoted “the creation of sexually explicit content and objectification of women”.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said five adverts posted on Meta platforms for AI companion and video-generation apps had objectified and sexualised women, including by relying on harmful gender stereotypes.
One advert used sexualised images of a girl under 18 to market an AI companion app, while others urged users to upload pictures of their “crush” and turn images into “sizzling” videos.
Meta had already taken down the offending adverts. But Nicky Baker of the ASA said material like this could “cause real-world harm”.
“We take a firm line on ads that are likely to cause serious or widespread offence and these ads are a clear example of why that matters,” she said.
“Encouraging and condoning the objectification of women and the creation of explicit content from people’s images has the potential to cause real-world harm.”
The ASA also said many of the adverts it banned had encouraged the creation of sexually explicit content using real women’s images without their consent.
The move comes just months after the UK banned apps used to create non-consensual deepfake nude imagery, following outrage over X’s chatbot Grok complying with requests to nudify images of women on the platform.
The ASA said the law had changed during its investigations, and that any adverts identified in future would be assessed under both the law and its own rules.
If adverts are found to be illegal, it said it may alert platforms and law enforcement.
The regulator identified the adverts using its AI-powered “Active Ad Monitoring System”, which actively searches for ads that may breach UK rules.
It said the five adverts it banned depicted women irresponsibly and were likely to cause serious or widespread offence.
One advert for an AI companion generator, created by Animcha Ltd, was also found to have portrayed someone under 18 in a sexual manner, the ASA said.
It showed the synthetic female character as someone users could “customise” and direct, mixing sexualised imagery with childlike clothing and objects.
Two adverts for an AI portrait-generation tool called Nexaipic encouraged users to “upload your crush and let AI create what you imagine” with sexually explicit videos.
An advert for an AI image-to-video generation app, identified only as KH31 DD22, showed a clothed woman being turned into a video in which she was topless.
The watchdog said this implied the app could be used to create content exposing women’s bodies.
Other adverts for the image-generation tool Rusto AI, which encouraged users to make sexualised videos from photographs, were found to have condoned the digital manipulation of women’s images to produce sexually explicit content.
And an advert for an AI image-to-video generation app, PictoPop, used sexualised imagery to showcase the tool, including by depicting the woman in a submissive pose.
The ASA said none of the apps’ creators replied to its enquiries.
Baker said the watchdog had acted “proactively” with its rulings as part of a broader “zero-tolerance approach” to such adverts.
And although Meta removed the adverts for breaking its own rules before the ASA acted, the social media company has previously faced scrutiny over similar adverts appearing on its platforms.
Most of these adverts were removed automatically by Meta, however Mantzarlis said many ads it identified had promoted domains or publishers that his site, Indicator, had previously flagged to the tech giant.