Hundreds of Mundane AI Apps Are Hiding Sexually Abusive Deepfake Features

At first glance, the self-proclaimed “pet portrait” app Viefur appears to be just another AI slop generator. Using digital coins sold in the app—around $4 will buy 130 coins—pet photos can be turned into an “anthropomorphic portrait,” with the critter dressed in “human clothing” and inserted into bizarre scenes. Think a hamster wearing beach shorts, sunglasses, and lounging in a swimming pool or a Hawaiian shirt-wearing cat, drinking from a coconut.

All of this is cover for what appears to be the app’s true purpose: creating sexually abusive deepfake images.

A WIRED investigation found the app is part of a network of more than 400 connected domains and apps that, like Viefur, often claim to be everyday services—such as language tuition or AI workout coaches. When accessed under certain conditions, however, apps in the network stealthily load a web interface allowing the generation of explicit AI sexual images and videos using photos users upload. The apps include AI scenes such as “bedroom rape” and “threatening knife,” where a man holds a knife to a woman’s neck.

The network was discovered hiding in plain sight, by multiple researchers, after they investigated links from thousands of video ads containing explicit deepfake content that were published on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. As WIRED has reported in recent months, hundreds of these ads contained AI generated child sexual abuse material, including images of real children and a member of a European royal family. The ads reached tens of thousands of people and have prompted investigations from regulators around the world.

“This is an organized, commercially run operation: One operator behind hundreds of disposable apps and domains, cloaked to pass App Store review and pushed through tens of thousands of Meta ads under fake payer names,” says Paul Bouchaud, a lead researcher at the nonprofit AI Forensics, who investigated the network. “They don’t expect enforcement to catch up, and so far it hasn’t.”