Watchdog links Meta partner GatherOne to thousands of nudify-app ads

A July 26 investigation by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) reported that Meta Ad Library disclosures named Beijing-based GatherOne—or its related company Hongkong Gather Wisdom—as the advertiser and payer behind a large network of Facebook and Instagram ads for AI face-swap and “nudify” apps. GatherOne is one of a select group of agencies authorized by Meta to place ads for Chinese clients. These are TTP’s reported findings, not a judicial determination, and the disclosed advertiser-and-payer role should not be confused with creating each app or advertisement.

Focusing on ads disclosed in the European Union, TTP identified 210 Facebook pages naming GatherOne or Hongkong Gather Wisdom that collectively ran about 30,800 ads for face-swap and other AI apps. Of those pages, 43 ran more than 7,600 ads for apps TTP says it verified could digitally undress women, while 179 pages—about 85 percent—ran ads Meta later removed from its Ad Library for violations of sexual-content policies. The figures are TTP’s analysis of Meta’s transparency data.

One advertised Android app, BAfter, contained a “ShareZone” that TTP researchers described as explicitly pornographic. TTP also found six Google Play reviews in which users expressed alarm about sexual images of children. The child-sexual-abuse-material-related evidence discussed here is therefore limited to those reviewer reports; it is not an independent finding by AI Weekly that GatherOne created, possessed, or knowingly promoted such material. Meta told Bloomberg it banned BAfter, and the app disappeared from Google Play in late July.

After TTP published its investigation, GatherOne told the organization that it had suspended new ad-account applications related to AI nudify, face-swap, and girlfriend services. Bloomberg reporting published by the Los Angeles Times said GatherOne was undertaking a compliance upgrade addressing synthetic media. GatherOne has said it complies with Meta’s advertising policies and maintains zero tolerance for adult content, non-consensual explicit AI material, child exploitation, fraud, and deceptive practices.

The accountability question is narrower than the original version of this article suggested: whether Meta’s authorized-reseller controls were adequate when its own disclosures connected a partner to accounts running policy-violating ads. That question warrants scrutiny, while responsibility for creating the individual apps, advertisements, or any illegal material must be assessed separately and on evidence specific to those actors.