Open Letter Signed by Coalition of 54 Organizations Demands AGs Hold Apple, Google Accountable for Platforming “Nudify” Apps

For Immediate Release: May 19, 2026
Contact: media@fwdshift.com

54 organizations call for legal action from attorneys general against Apple and Google for their role in facilitating sexual deepfake abuse

UltraViolet Action, a leading national women-led gender-justice organization that works to hold the tech and corporate sectors accountable to women and gender-expansive people, released today an open letter signed by 54 civil society organizations demanding that state and territory attorneys general do more to hold accountable major app store companies (namely, Apple and Google) responsible for enabling sexual deepfake abuse. The letter outlines how app stores are not just platforming such apps—which are used to create mass amounts of non-consensual exploitative material (NCEM) of women and children—but actively directing users to them:

“Today, we’re calling on attorneys general, our first line of defense for public and consumer safety, to take decisive investigative and legal action against major app stores enabling the ongoing relentless campaign of mass digital sexual abuse,” said Jenna Sherman, Campaign Director at UltraViolet Action. “The reality is that these companies are not just platforming ‘nudify’ apps (which is bad enough!)—they’re actively directing users to them through ads and algorithms to the tune of millions of dollars. This is truly unconscionable and must be brought to an end.”

The coalition sent the letter to the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) on Day One of the NAAG Spring Consumer Protection Conference taking place in Kansas City, MO. Notably, the conference website does not list sexual deepfake abuse or even the broad issue of deepfakes in the public list of topics set to be covered at the conference. Understanding that attorneys general already face a barrage of other attacks on consumers, the letter seeks to remind the Association of how urgent this epidemic of abuse really is and how harmful and pervasive app stores have been in fueling that abuse.

While the letter was sent to the NAAG which encompasses all 56 attorneys general offices, the letter specifically appeals to a bipartisan coalition of 47 state and territory attorneys general.In 2025, the coalition put on alert leading technology and financial companies, including Apple and Google, that had failed to take action on sexual deepfake abuse proliferating on their platforms. Those warnings were not heeded, unfortunately. Instead, the major app stores and other tech companies deliberately disregarded both the attorney general warnings and the Take It Down Act, which officially takes effect today, by boosting traffic to “nudify” apps through ads and algorithms for a handsome profit.

“The time has passed to appeal to the conscience of Google CEO Sundar Pichai and current and future Apple CEOs Tim Cook and John Ternus—what we need now are real legal consequences,” continued Sherman. “This may just be another line item for tech execs all too happy to put profits over people, but it’s deadly serious for the women and children whose lives have been irreversibly altered by this unchecked online abuse.”

The crisis of mass sexual abuse reached a boiling point in January, when xAI’s chatbot Grok, which is integrated into X, was used to create an estimated 3 million sexual deepfakes, including an estimated 23,000 deepfakes depicting children. And while the blowback was fierce and swift—leading xAI to announce limited restrictions on Grok’s generation of sexualized images and videos—companies like Apple and Google remained deafeningly silent on their role in facilitating the abuse. According to recent reporting from the Tech Transparency Project, Grok and xAI are but two of dozens,possibly even hundreds,of AI apps offered and even sponsored on Apple App Store and Google Play Store that can be used to create sexual deepfakes. Disturbingly, many of the apps on the app stores that have this functionality are rated for children as young as 4 years old.

Since 2023, UltraViolet has been at the center of a campaign to advocate for greater safeguards against AI-facilitated sexual abuse enabled by some of the biggest tech companies in the world. The open letter, which received coverage from The 19th, is a continuation of that campaign and represents the coalition’s commitment to building necessary AI guardrails to keep people safe and to hold tech companies accountable. Leaders from several of the 54 participating organizations spoke out in condemnation of inaction by Apple and Google:

“These big tech gatekeepers like to talk the talk about safety, but refuse to walk the walk,” said Ben Winters, Director of AI and Privacy at the Consumer Federation of America. “Taking meaningful action would mean proactively quashing the apps being explicitly advertised for deepfake abuse. Instead, Google and Apple are choosing to play a major role in fueling this violence ecosystem. These companies have proven repeatedly that they won’t stop this abuse out of the goodness of their own heart—which means it’s past time for regulators to act decisively and protect consumers from this very preventable AI-enabled blackmail and abuse.”

“Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit relatives, and children already face disproportionate levels of violence, exploitation, and erasure,” stated Dr. Crystal Cavalier, Founder of the Missing Murdered Indigenous Women Coalition of North Carolina. “The unchecked spread of AI-generated deepfake abuse and non-consensual exploitative materials is creating a new frontier of digital violence that further endangers our communities. Technology companies cannot continue to profit from the humiliation, exploitation, and targeting of women and children while avoiding accountability. We stand with survivors and call for immediate action to hold corporations responsible for enabling and monetizing this abuse. Protecting human dignity, bodily sovereignty, and the safety of future generations must come before corporate profit.”

“Without the bravery of survivors and tireless advocacy of key organizations,” Sherman reflected, “this issue would have been buried by companies like Apple and Google a long time ago. We know our AGs overwhelmingly care about this issue. And as the ‘people’s lawyers,’ we’re calling on them to prioritize putting that concern into tangible action ASAP. The app stores platforming and directing users to these heinous apps—where kids and adults alike download games, social media sites, and work tools—send the message that using AI to whip up a fake nude image of someone is normal and should be easy. There are few graver consumer protection issues facing society—especially women and children—right now.” concluded Sherman.

UltraViolet , which worked to stop child abuse on online platforms like Roblox, led the fight  to remove Grok and X from Apple and Google stores, and campaigned against the Defense Department’s adoption of Grok, released the open letter to Apple and Google as part of a broad campaign to dismantle the NCII ecosystem known as “Reclaim the Domain.”

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UltraViolet Action is a women-led gender justice 501c4 organization, with an online community of more than 1 million members nationwide. We combine organizing, technology, creative campaigning, and people power to win real-world changes for women and gender-expansive people.