Thousands of explicit AI 'girlfriend' ads found on Meta platforms

Meta has begun pushing AI on Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp — so much so that you can't turn Meta AI off. As it turns out, the tech giant's own features aren't the only AI proliferating on Meta's platforms. Explicit ads for AI "girlfriends" are populating Facebook and Instagram, Wired reported.

Searches by Wired found that at least 29,000 ads for explicit AI "girlfriends" have been published on Meta platforms, most with sex-related messaging; at least 19,000 ads have the term "NSFW" and 14,000 "NSFW AI." Wired conducted searches on Meta's ad library, which can display all ads currently on its platforms; all ads shown in the EU in the last year; and ads from the past seven years related to elections, politics, or social issues.

These explicit ads appear to violate Meta's adult content advertising policy, which bans advertisers from running ads that "contain adult content, such as nudity and depictions of people in explicit or suggestive positions, or activities that are overly suggestive or sexually provocative." Facebook and Instagram's community guidelines ban nudity and anything the platform sees as "offering sexual services." These platforms also ban sexual language in instances of sexual solicitation (or perceived solicitation), even "commonly sexual emojis."

For years, sex workers — and also sex educators, LGBTQ users, erotic artists, and the like — have said that Meta unfairly targets their content and accounts due to these policies. Such users have told Mashable that they feared targeting under Meta community guidelines; Instagram shadowbans LGBTQ and sex educator accounts; and that Whatsapp bans sex worker accounts. In one experiment conducted by sexual wellness brand Unbound last fall, Meta repeatedly rejected sex toy ads targeted for women, while approving ones targeted for men. Last November, Mashable reported that Meta allegedly rejected a period care ad for being adult or political.

Yet, these NSFW AI "girlfriend" ads apparently skate through. Wired's report isn't the first instance of ads for explicit AI apps showing up on Meta: Deepfake ads featuring Jenna Ortega and other celebrities ran on Meta platforms as well.

When Wired contacted Meta about this, 2,700 AI "girlfriend" ads were active. Meta spokesperson Ryan Daniels told Wired that the company prohibits such ads and were reviewing them, and would remove those that violated its policies. "When we identify violating ads we work quickly to remove them, as we're doing here,” he told Wired. "We continue to improve our systems, including how we detect ads and behavior that go against our policies."

Still, the publication found that thousands of these ads were still active days later.

Mashable has reached out to Meta for comment.