YouTube Sent 1.8 Million People to 'Nudify' Sites in Four Months
A new report finds mainstream platforms, not obscure corners of the internet, are the main highways driving traffic to tools that strip people's clothes off without their consent.
Key points
- Social media platforms drove more than 5.7 million visits to nudify sites between December 2025 and March 2026, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
- YouTube alone was responsible for 1.82 million of those visits, over 30 percent of all referral traffic measured.
- X ranked second, sending more than 1.3 million visits to the same sites during the same period.
- Some nudify tools charge as little as $1 per image, and the sector may collectively earn as much as $36 million in annual revenue.
- Minnesota became the first US state to ban nudification apps specifically, in May 2026.
Nudify apps are software that uses artificial intelligence to generate fake naked images of real people without their knowledge or consent. They're cheap, increasingly easy to find, and, according to a new report, mainstream social media is actively pointing people toward them.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a research group that tracks disinformation and online harms, published its findings this week. Researchers tracked the top ten nudify apps and websites and measured where their visitors came from. Not from loosely moderated forums. From YouTube.
The platform sent 1.82 million visits to nudify sites across four months. Users searching phrases like "undress app" found videos reviewing specific platforms and sharing discount codes for free credits. YouTube prohibits sexually explicit content and bans links to sexually explicit websites. The ISD report says both rules appear to have been ignored at scale.
A YouTube spokesperson told Wired that the platform's policies cover "altered or synthetic content that realistically simulates nudity" and extend to external links. Strict rules on paper, thin enforcement in practice.
X ranked second with more than 1.3 million referral visits. The platform drew separate criticism in January 2026 when users found that Grok, its built-in AI chatbot, generated nude or sexually suggestive images of real women without consent, including some minors. X later restricted Grok to paying subscribers.
What does this mean for ordinary people?
If your photo is publicly visible online, these tools can be used against you. The ISD researchers found that common targets include current and former partners and, disturbingly, relatives such as sisters and cousins. Researchers found many requests weren't sexual at all: people used the tools to damage careers and livelihoods.
US federal law now requires social media platforms to remove nonconsensual intimate images within 48 hours of a takedown request, a requirement that came fully into force in May 2026. If you or someone you know is targeted, a formal takedown request to the platform is the first practical step.
Legislation is moving, but the apps are spreading faster. Deepfake cases have been reported in more than 90 schools globally. AI2Day's earlier reporting on how AI learns from human faces and stories showed that consent gaps in training data don't stay abstract for long. The ISD is calling for stronger platform enforcement and digital literacy education that reaches students before they encounter these tools.
The blunt read: YouTube's ad-revenue model and its enforcement gap are doing more to grow this market than any dark-web forum. That's the thing regulators should be naming directly.
