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New research from European nonprofit AI Forensics says seven of the top nine image-generation tools freely available on Hugging Face allow users to create non-consensual nude images digitally. The findings, reported by Wired, highlight how one of the most prominent open-source AI hosting platforms is being misused despite policies that explicitly prohibit such actions.
AI Forensics tested the most popular image-editing Spaces on Hugging Face using the platform's default ‘most relevant’ sorting order. The results were shocking, as the majority of top-ranked tools generated sexualized deepfake images. Researchers also found evidence that they were actively being used for this purpose.
The scope of the problem extends beyond tools tested in the study. A separate body, 404 Media investigation, found Hugging Face hosting approximately 5,000 AI image models that can generate images of real people, many of which were previously used to produce nonconsensual pornography.
“Most of the Spaces [tested] can be used for generating nonconsensual intimate images, and users are actually using it for these purposes,” said Paul Bouchaud, a lead researcher at AI Forensics. “This is not an empty threat, but actually people are using Hugging Face for that,” he added further.
Hugging Face's content policies explicitly prohibit child sexual abuse material and deepfakes created without consent or used for harassment. However, AI Forensics highlighted a critical structural weakness in the enforcement of these rules. Hugging Face does not apply safety filters at the infrastructure level, leaving individual developers to implement their own content restrictions, which most do not.
Some pages promoting nudifying services were removed following the publication of research. The nonprofit has since issued a formal set of recommendations urging the platform to take infrastructure-level responsibility rather than leaving content safety entirely to individual developers.
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The findings arrive at a moment when global regulators are moving for the first time with genuine urgency to address nonconsensual deepfakes. US law enforcement agencies have seized websites dedicated to hosting deepfake content in recent months. European Union and the United Kingdom have drafted legislation to ban nudify applications by the end of 2026.
The investigation suggests that even as these legal frameworks take shape, major technology platforms are still funneling users toward tools that enable behavior regulators are trying to stop. For Hugging Face, a billion-dollar platform positioned as the central infrastructure layer of the open-source AI ecosystem, the gap between its stated policies and the study results is a reputational and regulatory issue that needs immediate action.
