AI app ads promoting 'objectification of women' banned by watchdog

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK has banned a series of social media advertisements for AI apps that were promoting the creation of sexually explicit content and objectification of women. The ASA cited five ads uploaded to Meta platforms that depicted women in harmful and sexualized ways, including the use of sexualised images of minors to promote AI companion apps and AI-generated videos.

Nicky Baker, the ASA's spokesperson, emphasized that such content can cause real-world harm and that the ads encouraged objectification and the creation of explicit content without consent. The watchdog noted that many of the banned ads promoted the use of real women's images for creating sexually explicit content without their permission.

This case follows the UK's recent law prohibiting apps that generate non-consensual deepfake nude imagery, which was prompted by concerns over Meta's chatbot Grok. The ASA's AI-powered Active Ad Monitoring System identified the problematic ads, which depicted women irresponsibly and were likely to cause serious offense. The banned ads included one for an AI companion generator, two for an AI portrait generation tool inviting users to upload their crush, an ad for an AI image-to-video generation app, and an ad for another image generation tool that encouraged creating sexualized videos from photographs.

The ASA's decision comes as part of a zero-tolerance approach to such advertisements, and they may notify platforms and law enforcement if ads are found to be illegal.