Why Would Meta Download So Much Porn?
Meta is facing a lawsuit alleging that the company scraped and distributed illicit content, including copyrighted adult films and deepfake imagery, to train its AI models. The allegations suggest a broad collection of unauthorized and sensitive data.
Why it matters
Raises significant ethical and legal questions regarding data sourcing practices in the generative AI industry.
Filings from a recent lawsuit allege that the tech company accessed—and distributed—copyrighted adult films, blueprints for 3-D-printable handguns, celebrity deepfakes, and more.
Illustration by Akshita Chandra / The Atlantic July 24, 2026, 3:15 PM ET Share Save Editor’s note: This work is part of AI Watchdog , The Atlantic ’s ongoing investigation into the generative-AI industry.
A mid tech companies’ ongoing efforts to vacuum up as much data as possible to train AI models, Meta has taken public posts from its own platforms, scraped massive amounts of content from the rest of the internet, and pirated millions of books to train its AI models. Now the company is being accused of downloading much more illicit material: huge volumes of porn, nonconsensual celebrity nudes, blueprints for 3-D-printable handguns, and millions of passwords acquired by hackers.
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