Senator and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin has sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking about his company’s role in directing traffic to apps that use artificial intelligence to generate nonconsensual nude images. Specifically, Durbin’s letter cites 404 Media’s reporting about Crushmate, a so-called “nudify” app that has repeatedly advertised its services on Meta platforms, often with nonconsensual nude images of women, and that according to traffic analysis firm Similarweb has sent Crushmate 90 percent of its traffic. Alexios Mantzarlis was first to track the traffic Meta was sending Crush in his Faked Up newsletter.
“Tech companies should not assist malevolent actors who seek to take advantage of women and children,” Durbin wrote in his letter to Zuckerberg. “I am gravely concerned with Meta’s failure to prevent this perverse abuse of its platforms and I refuse to accept Meta’s facilitation of these crimes. I therefore urge Meta to join us in combatting this threat.”