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The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a series of social media advertisements promoting artificial intelligence (AI) applications, citing concerns over the sexualisation and objectification of women. These adverts, which appeared on Meta platforms, featured content that perpetuated harmful gender stereotypes and encouraged the creation of sexually explicit material. Among the five ads flagged, one controversially employed sexualised images of a girl under 18 to market an AI companion app, while others invited users to upload photos of their “crush” to generate provocative videos.
Although Meta had already taken down the problematic ads, the ASA emphasized the potential for such content to inflict real-world damage. Nicky Baker, representing the ASA, commented on the seriousness of the issue, stating, “We take a firm line on ads that are likely to cause serious or widespread offence and these ads are a clear example of why that matters.” She stressed that encouraging the objectification of women and enabling explicit content creation using personal images could lead to tangible harm beyond the digital sphere.
The banned advertisements were found to often involve the production of explicit content using images of real women without their consent. This development follows recent UK legislation outlawing non-consensual deepfake nude imagery, a move partly triggered by backlash against X’s chatbot Grok, which complied with requests to generate nudified images of women. The ASA noted that its evaluation of future ads would consider both its own policies and existing legal standards. In cases where ads are deemed illegal, the watchdog indicated it might alert both platform providers and law enforcement agencies.
These ads were discovered through the ASA’s AI-driven “Active Ad Monitoring System,” designed to proactively detect potentially rule-breaking advertisements within the UK. The regulator found that the ads irresponsibly depicted women and were capable of causing serious offense. One particular ad from Animcha Ltd featured a synthetic female character combining sexualised imagery with childlike attire and accessories, suggesting an under-18 portrayal in a sexual context. Other banned ads included those for Nexaipic, which encouraged users to upload pictures of their crush to generate sexually explicit content, and KH31 DD22, which showed an AI transforming images of clothed women into topless videos. Additional ads from Rusto AI and PictoPop were also condemned for promoting sexualised manipulations of women’s images, with PictoPop notably depicting a woman in a submissive posture. ASA reported that none of the developers behind these applications responded to their inquiries
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