Report: Teens Can Reportedly Download 135 AI 'Nudify' Apps
The Facts
- A Tech Transparency Project report released Monday found that test accounts registered to 13-year-olds could download 135 apps from the Apple and Google app stores with features that strip clothing from people in photos or swap faces onto nude bodies.
- Researchers created two Apple and two Google accounts, turning on parental controls for one of each pair. The supervised Apple account still reached 24 of the apps and the supervised Google account 51, because the apps were rated suitable for minors.
- Both companies set age ratings using developers' self-reported questionnaires. One app rated for users 9 and older promised to digitally undress any person, and a face-swapping app advertised with a sexually explicit image was rated for ages 4 and up.
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The Spin
Industry-critical narrative
Letting developers grade their own homework on age ratings is how sexual deepfake tools land in the hands of 13-year-olds, even when parental controls are turned on. Trillion-dollar companies pocketing a 30% cut have every resource needed to verify ages and vet apps before approval, not after the damage is done. Real accountability laws beat another round of quiet app removals.
Pro-industry narrative
App store rules already ban nudification and bait-and-switch, with hundreds of thousands of fraudulent developer accounts terminated. While anecdotal reports like this from parents are distressing, they're being used to push sweeping bans that criminalize any software able to depict consensual, legal art. The First Amendment should not be bent due to moral panic.
