App Stores & Meta's Porn: An Uncomfortable Affair

AI Forensics extended its earlier analysis of pornographic advertising on Meta's platforms by examining whether Facebook and Instagram's distribution of such ads, including through their mobile apps, breaches Apple App Store and Google Play terms of service, in addition to Meta's own Community Standards.

The investigation found that Meta had approved more than 3,000 pornographic advertisements, generating over 8 million impressions across the EU, including AI-generated explicit media and celebrity deepfakes. The researchers state that Meta had previously been notified about this content and had acknowledged that it breaches its own policies, and that Apple confirmed, in response to the researchers' notice, that the material violates App Store rules. The report also notes that Meta possesses the technical capacity to detect such visuals automatically, since comparable images are removed when posted as ordinary user content.

The report concludes that the persistence of this advertising, despite acknowledged policy violations and app-store terms, warrants regulatory scrutiny under the Digital Services Act regarding consistency in content moderation and advertising standards.