Meta is escalating its fight against AI nudify apps with a lawsuit against Joy Timeline HK, the entity behind Crush AI, and a wider enforcement push across its platforms.
The dispute centers on ads for services that use generative AI to create fake, sexually explicit images of real people without their consent. Meta says the company repeatedly violated its policies and tried to get around review systems after earlier removals.
Why Meta sued Crush AI
Meta filed the lawsuit in Hong Kong against Joy Timeline HK. According to Meta, the entity attempted to circumvent the company’s review process so it could distribute ads for AI nudify services.
Meta said in a blog post that it had repeatedly removed ads from the entity because they violated its policies. The company claims Joy Timeline HK continued placing additional ads anyway.
The scale of the alleged advertising campaign made the issue harder to ignore. Alexios Mantzarlis, author of the Faked Up newsletter, reported that Crush AI ran more than 8,000 ads for its “AI undresser” services on Meta’s platform in the first two weeks of 2025.
Mantzarlis also claimed in a January report that Crush AI’s websites received roughly 90% of their traffic from either Facebook or Instagram, and that he flagged several of the websites to Meta.
How the ads reportedly kept appearing
The source describes a pattern in which Crush AI allegedly used multiple routes to keep ads moving through Meta’s systems. The reported tactics included setting up dozens of advertiser accounts and frequently changing domain names.
Many of the advertiser accounts, according to Mantzarlis, used the name “Eraser Annyone’s Clothes” followed by different numbers. At one point, Crush AI also had a Facebook page promoting its service.
That matters because platform enforcement is not only about finding one bad ad. When a service can shift accounts, names, and domains, the moderation problem becomes a network problem. Meta’s lawsuit frames the issue as repeated attempts to avoid enforcement, not a single mistaken placement.
A broader problem for social platforms
Facebook and Instagram are not the only platforms facing this kind of abuse. The source notes that social media companies such as X and Meta have been racing to add generative AI to their apps while also struggling to moderate the ways AI tools can make platforms unsafe for users, particularly minors.
Researchers have found that links to AI undressing apps soared in 2024 on platforms like X and Reddit. On YouTube, millions of people were reportedly served ads for such apps.
Some platforms have already taken steps to reduce discovery of these services. Meta and TikTok have banned keyword searches for AI nudify apps. Even so, the source makes clear that removing these services entirely from major platforms has proven difficult.
The challenge is partly technical and partly operational. Ads may not show nudity directly, while still promoting a service built around generating nonconsensual sexual imagery. That means enforcement systems have to recognize intent, patterns, domains, wording, and repeat behavior rather than relying only on obvious visual violations.
What Meta says it is changing
Meta says it has developed new technology to identify ads for AI nudify or undressing services “even when the ads themselves don’t include nudity.” The company also says it is using matching technology to find and remove copycat ads more quickly.
Meta has expanded the list of terms, phrases, and emoji flagged by its systems. It also says it is applying tactics traditionally used to disrupt networks of bad actors to networks of accounts running ads for AI nudify services.
Since the start of 2025, Meta said it has disrupted four separate networks promoting these services.
The company is also moving beyond its own apps. Meta said it will begin sharing information about AI nudify apps through Tech Coalition’s Lantern program, a collective effort between Google, Meta, Snap, and other companies to prevent child sexual exploitation online.
Meta says it has provided more than 3,800 unique URLs with this network since March.
The policy fight is still developing
Meta also linked the issue to legislation. The company said it would “continue to support legislation that empowers parents to oversee and approve their teens’ app downloads.”
The company previously supported the US Take It Down Act and said it is now working with lawmakers to implement it.
For Meta, the Crush AI lawsuit is one part of a larger response: legal action against an alleged advertiser, new detection tools, faster removal of copycat ads, broader search and ad enforcement, network disruption, and cross-company information sharing.
For users, the case shows how generative AI abuse can move through familiar ad systems even when platforms ban the underlying service category. The next test is whether legal pressure and stronger detection can reduce the reach of AI nudify apps before they find another route back into mainstream platforms.