YouTube and X Have Become ‘Gateways’ to Nudify Apps
A report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue reveals that major platforms like YouTube and X are inadvertently driving millions of users to 'nudify' apps. These sites use AI to generate nonconsensual explicit imagery, raising significant concerns about platform policy enforcement.
Why it matters
It highlights the failure of major tech platforms to curb the spread of harmful, nonconsensual AI-generated content despite existing safety policies.
The report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), an anti-extremism and disinformation organization, analyzes the online ecosystem that enables the proliferation of so-called “nudify” apps and websites, which allow users to digitally undress people without their consent.
The study, which was published on Monday, looked at the top 10 apps and websites used to make nonconsensual explicit deepfakes, as well as how people are finding them. It found that a surprising amount of referral traffic comes not from small, poorly regulated online communities like 4chan, but from mainstream social media platforms.
According to the ISD report, social networks drove more than 5.7 million visits to nudify sites between December 2025 and March 2026. The top driver of this traffic was YouTube, which was responsible for 1.82 million site visits, or more than 30 percent of the referrals.
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