Millions Of People Use AI Bots To Create Deepfake Nudes On Telegram

In this digital era, where people spend a large amount of their time on social media platforms, one major concern that’s come out recently is that of safety.

This concern spans users of all ages, including children.

In the past couple of years, social media giant Meta has come under the scanner a number of times for intentionally making their social media platforms addictive to children.

This even drew the attention of legal bodies in the United States, with 33 states suing the company for intentionally causing harm to children. These states included New York, California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont.

Social media sensation TikTok also faced the brunt of Attorneys general from 14 states and districts and found themselves being sued for allegedly harming children’s mental health and misleading the public about its platform’s safety.

The lawsuits claim TikTok promotes harmful features, such as autoplaying videos and beauty filters, which keep children engaged longer and expose them to dangerous viral challenges.

In contrast, even Meta’s and TikTok’s efforts to remediate harmful content drew criticism from its users and the general public.

Some Meta users found their Threads and Instagram accounts were suspended for trivial reasons such as using “harmful” words in texts that were meant as sarcasm, while others were banned for being “underage”. A user was provided the reason that he was under 13 and faced permanent suspensions despite proving his age to be significantly above that.

On the other hand, TikTok reportedly replaced hundreds of its content moderation staff with AI technology. Here the alleged number was over 700 in Malaysia alone, a number TikTok refused saying it was under 500. Still, a high number.

Now, social media and instant messenger application Telegram Messenger has gathered the attention of various experts for its harmful content and use of deepfake technology that could potentially affect everyone, whether they use the platform or not.


A review by WIRED found between 50 AI-powered bots that can generate deepfake nude images or videos of anyone within minutes, including children and other people under the age of 18.

These bots are also supported by at least 25 associated Telegram channels.

These bots vary in their capabilities, with some being able to remove clothes from images, while some claim to be able to create images of people engaged in various sexual acts.

The bots are accessed by millions of users, with the combined monthly users across these 50 bots touching 4 million.

Unfortunately, this list consists of mainly English-language bots and the total number of bots with such capabilities could be a lot higher.

“We’re talking about a significant, orders-of-magnitude increase in the number of people who are clearly actively using and creating this kind of content,” said Henry Ajder, a deepfake expert.

“It is really concerning that these tools—which are really ruining lives and creating a very nightmarish scenario primarily for young girls and for women—are still so easy to access and to find on the surface web, on one of the biggest apps in the world.”

Upon being requested a comment about why the platform allows such bots to be run, Telegram promptly deleted the 75 bots and channels without providing a comment on the matter.

For obvious reasons, the bots were not tested while reporting.

However, this isn’t a new problem that’s come up on the popular social networking application. In 2020, Henry Ajder found a bot on the platform that could “undress” photos of women using artificial intelligence (AI).

Add to this the arrest of Pavel Durov, the co-founder of Telegram, which was made on August 24, 2024, as a result of indictments made on 12 charges, including the distribution of child exploitation material and complicity in drug trafficking.

While such platforms promote free speech, such harmful content should surely be restricted from being shared or operated.

With the average person spending around 2 and a half hours on social media per day, do you think social media platforms need to be held to higher standards when it comes to harmful content?

Do you think regulatory bodies need to step in for such publicly-open social media platforms?

Let us know in the comments below!