Google has announced significant changes to its advertising policies, prohibiting the promotion of services related to the creation of sexually explicit content through artificial intelligence.
Until now, the platform already banned ads with graphic sexual content, but allowed advertising for services that facilitated the creation of pornographic deepfakes or other types of nudity generated with AI.
The new Google policy, which will take effect on May 30th, expands the ban to include the promotion of any service that helps users generate or alter images with explicit sexual content. This includes websites and apps that provide instructions on how to create deepfake pornography or other types of synthetic nudity.
According to Michael Aciman, spokesperson for Google, this update aims to explicitly prohibit advertising for services that offer to create deepfake pornography or AI-generated nudes. The company will use both human reviews and automated systems to enforce these policies.
Google removed over 1.8 billion ads for violating its policies on sexual content in 2023, according to its annual report Ads Safety Report. This measure comes several months after a controversy on social media with the deepfake porn of artist Taylor Swift. The singer is one of the many women, famous and non-famous, who have been victims of a harmful practice that urgently needs greater regulation.
