Meta ran paid advertisements on Instagram and Facebook for a now-removed App Store app called Kromix that enabled users to create AI-generated pornographic deepfakes of real people.
According to WIRED, Kromix billed itself as an “AI image styler” with “no restrictions,” claiming “all the characters are real people” and marketing itself as “the AI that men actually use.” One ad featured a woman closely resembling a prominent US politician standing in front of a US flag with the caption “What if she moved?” She then winked before the ad cut to a scene of a woman with the same face performing in a pornographic video. Meta actively directed users toward nonconsensual deepfake creation technology through paid promotion on its own platforms, a more direct form of complicity than passive app store distribution.
The incident shows the scale of nonconsensual deepfake tools operating across storefronts. The Tech Transparency Project documented that so-called “nudify” apps had been collectively downloaded more than 705 million times worldwide and generated $117 million in revenue, with Apple and Google taking a percentage cut. Those apps broadly advertised themselves as “face-swapping” tools, but enabled creation of sexual deepfakes once users engaged with them.
In response, Apple stated: “The App Store was designed to be a safe and trusted place for users, and we have always strictly prohibited apps designed to generate, distribute, or consume pornography. ‘Nudification’ apps are against our App Review Guidelines and we have proactively rejected many of these apps and removed many others, including when users have flagged them via our reporting tools.” The company said it removed three of the apps in question and was in the process of terminating their developer accounts. Apple stated it was in contact with four others that needed to address policy violations or risk removal.
The pattern reflects a recurring vulnerability in App Store moderation. In January 2026, Apple privately warned Elon Musk’s xAI company that it would remove the Grok app unless the company stopped the chatbot from generating nonconsensual sexualized deepfakes of women and children. In June 2026, months after these issues surfaced, Apple tightened its App Store guideline language on developer responsibility for pornographic content, suggesting the company had recognized the problem well in advance yet enforcement remained inconsistent.
