You expect all kinds of apps on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, from weather monitors to home automation apps and games. What you might not expect are apps that can create non-consensual nude imagery from ordinary photos. But they exist, and the City of San Francisco has had enough.
On July 17, 2026, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sent cease-and-desist letters to Apple and Google, naming 13 face-swapping and “nudify” apps (eight on the App Store and five on Google Play) and giving the companies 28 days to remove them and cut ties with the developers.
The letters don’t come out of nowhere.
It’s about payment systems, not content moderation
Chiu isn’t arguing that hosting an app automatically makes a platform liable for what it does. Platform operators already won that battle with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That 30-year-old law says websites generally aren’t responsible for content posted by users, allowing platforms to host user-generated content without getting sued every time someone defames someone in a comment thread.
