Two apps that turned real faces into sexual deepfakes have vanished from Apple’s storefront, pulled after a media investigation connected one of them to an ad campaign running on Meta. WIRED documented one spot that placed a figure closely resembling a prominent US politician in front of American flags before switching to an explicit clip of the same face.
Part of 32 ads delivered exclusively to male users, the campaign promoted an app named Kromix that sold itself as an unrestricted AI image styler whose characters were real people. Apple framed the case as a review evader, saying the offending functions surfaced only after the app cleared its initial screening, and repeated a standing prohibition on software whose purpose is producing or spreading explicit sexual material, pledging to pursue the developer accounts as well as the apps.
The outlet’s probe also surfaced MaskAI, an app that grafted uploaded faces onto sexual imagery; Apple pulled that one from the store as well, and Meta’s ads stopped running once WIRED made contact. The moves follow a July order from San Francisco’s city attorney demanding eight similar apps be pulled, and Apple reiterated that nudification software breaches its review guidelines.
