New Firms Linked to ‘Nudify’ Apps That Ran Advertisements on Fb, Instagram

Content material warning: This story discusses non-consensual deepfake nude imagery.

On the floor, Crushmate seemed to be certainly one of many synthetic intelligence “girlfriend” or “companion” apps. Its a number of web sites stated it specialised in “crafting the AI lady of your goals”, and on Google and Apple’s app shops, it was described as an “AI chat product designed to offer customers with a complete emotional help and communication expertise”. 

However advertisements linked to the app on fashionable social media platforms confirmed it was providing a wholly totally different service – making nonconsensual nude photographs of actual ladies.

Meta introduced final week that it was suing Pleasure Timeline HK Restricted (“Pleasure Timeline”), the Hong Kong-based firm it stated was behind a bunch of deepfake “nudifying” apps underneath “CrushAI”, which embrace Crushmate. This was following a 404 Media report in January that CrushAI had purchased 1000’s of advertisements on Instagram and Fb, utilizing a number of faux Fb profiles to evade Meta’s moderators. 

Nevertheless, a Bellingcat investigation has uncovered two further firms in Hong Kong and mainland China – Soul friendship HK Restricted (“Soul friendship”) and Wuhan Ruisen Zhuoxin Community Expertise Co., Ltd (“Wuhan Ruisen”) – that seem to have hyperlinks to those apps. 

The CrushAI advertisements confirmed ladies, together with celebrities and influencers, having their garments artificially eliminated utilizing deepfake expertise. They led to pages prompting customers to add pictures of individuals and “erase garments” off them. 

404 Media’s report prompted Illinois Senator Dick Durbin to write to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg about CrushAI’s promoting on Meta’s platforms, in a letter mentioning that “the era and dissemination of nonconsensual, deepfake intimate imagery are acts of abuse and violations of privateness that inflict lasting hurt on victims”. 

Requested in regards to the two different firms Bellingcat has linked to CrushAI, Meta stated it was wanting into them and would take motion, together with authorized motion, as crucial if it discovered violations of its insurance policies. The corporate additionally stated they may proceed to take the mandatory steps in opposition to different advertisers who abuse their platform.

Soul friendship was the listed developer of Crushmate on the Apple App Retailer, whereas Wuhan Ruisen filed an utility for a US federal trademark associated to the Crushmate model final yr. Paperwork supporting Wuhan Ruisen’s trademark utility recommend that the app earned greater than US$45,000 in subscriptions between December 2023 and July final yr. 

The authorized submitting, which Meta offered to Bellingcat, reveals that the social media big is searching for an injunction to forestall Pleasure Timeline from inserting advertisements associated to nudify apps on its platforms. Additionally it is claiming US$289,200 in damages, together with prices it stated it incurred for investigating and eradicating advertisements for the CrushAI apps, to reply to public and regulators’ queries in relation to the advertisements and to take enforcement motion in opposition to Pleasure Timeline.

The grievance said that Pleasure Timeline positioned over 87,000 violating advertisements on Fb and Instagram as of February this yr, primarily focusing on customers within the US, Canada, Australia, Germany and the UK.

In response to Bellingcat’s queries, a Crushmate consultant stated that the app had completely shut down however had “very briefly relied on the help of many third-party companions” within the early phases of its enterprise. 

On the connection between CrushAI and Pleasure Timeline in addition to the 2 different firms the consultant stated that “because the mission has now ended and the staff now not exists, I’m sadly unable to confirm whether or not the corporate you talked about in your electronic mail was certainly one of our former companions”. 

Soul friendship, Pleasure Timeline and Wuhan Ruisen didn’t reply to a number of requests for touch upon their relationships with one another or with CrushAI.

Pleasure Timeline

Like different infamous AI nudify apps, CrushAI seems to personal a number of web sites with the identical area title (“crushmate”) however totally different extensions equivalent to .website .web .vip and .us. Bellingcat discovered at the least 23 domains that used the Crushmate title, all of that are now not accessible. These had been largely registered on two days in April and July 2024. We additionally discovered different websites with similar homepage layouts and content material to Crushmate, with comparable domains like “Crushai”, “crushh”, “crrru”, “crushx” and “crush1”. 

Utilizing Area Instruments, we had been in a position to hyperlink these websites – and extra – by means of an similar Google Analytics Tag, which is used to trace web site visitors.

Whereas almost each certainly one of these web sites had their WHOIS registration information redacted for privateness, one was not, and it was registered to Pleasure Timeline.

Our search on Whoxy, a reverse WHOIS search instrument, discovered 158 domains registered publicly to Pleasure Timeline on the time of publication. Just one carried the Crushmate title, however 28 extra had virtually similar layouts and in addition seemed to be deepfake “nudify” apps. 

For instance, archived variations of the principle pages of two of those domains, “sparkaifun [dot] on-line” and “chatnplay [dot] on-line”, had been similar to the house web page and “clothes eraser” pages on CrushAI’s websites.

It’s doable that there are extra comparable internet domains that didn’t present up in our searches, as area registrants may select to redact their data. Different energetic domains owned by Pleasure Timeline, in response to publicly accessible area data, embrace homepages for different “AI chat” apps, picture modifying apps and cell video games, amongst others.

On Hong Kong’s Firms Registry, Pleasure Timeline’s director was listed as an individual known as Zhang Xiao, who holds a Chinese language passport. 

The corporate was registered with 100 shares issued at a complete worth of HK$100 (US$12.80). Zhang Xiao was listed within the firm paperwork as proudly owning 90 of those shares, whereas one other Chinese language nationwide, Zhang Shiwei, owns 10. 

Zhang Shiwei is the director of Soul friendship, which Bellingcat’s investigation has additionally linked to the CrushAI apps. 

Soul friendship

Though Crushmate is now not obtainable on Google’s Play Retailer and Apple’s App Retailer, archived variations of its app listings on each of those shops led us to Soul friendship, one other Hong Kong-based firm.

Crushmate’s developer on Google’s Play Retailer from September 2024, based mostly on a cached model of the web page, was listed as “LipLip Staff”. Our on-line searches of LipLip Staff confirmed that it had one other app listed on the Play Retailer known as “LipLip – Dwell Video Chat&Meet”, which seemed to be a chatting app. 

Bellingcat couldn’t discover any firm known as “LipLip Staff” registered in Hong Kong, the place LipLip-Chat’s archived X bio said that the app is predicated. 

However the URL of LipLip’s web page from the developer’s archived Google Play Retailer profile, based mostly on each listed copies of the Google Play Retailer itemizing and LipLip’s X bio, included the ID “hk.soulfriendship.chat” – our first clue that one other firm was concerned. 

On the Google Play Retailer, the app ID which makes up a part of the URL is based mostly on the package deal title of an app, which uniquely identifies the app throughout the Play Retailer. The package deal title may very well be set to something, so long as it’s not utilized by every other app on the Play Retailer. 

Nevertheless, on this case, it occurs to carefully match the title of Soul friendship, the Hong Kong-based developer that revealed each Crushmate and LipLip-Chat on the Apple App Retailer.

We had been capable of finding extra data on Soul friendship by viewing LipLip-Chat’s Apple App Retailer itemizing as it might seem from a rustic throughout the European Union. 

As a result of EU’s Digital Providers Act, Apple is legally required to confirm and show extra detailed data for merchants distributing apps within the EU than in different jurisdictions. 

This contains builders’ Information Common Numbering System (DUNS) quantity – a nine-digit quantity key for uniquely figuring out firms worldwide – in addition to contact data equivalent to their handle, cellphone quantity and electronic mail handle. 

Even from exterior of the EU, it’s straightforward to view this data by tweaking the nation code within the URL of the web-based App Retailer itemizing. 

For instance, the developer data seen on the US app retailer itemizing for LipLip-Chat solely reveals Soul friendship’s title. However merely altering the nation code from “us” to “nl” (the Netherlands’ nation code) reveals the corporate’s DUNS Quantity, handle, cellphone quantity and electronic mail handle:

The handle listed for Soul friendship, within the industrial district of Wan Chai, Hong Kong, is identical one on Pleasure Timeline’s area title registration data. This handle can also be listed as belonging to one of many 6,900 or so Belief or Firm Service Suppliers (TCSPs) in Hong Kong that are authorised to offer, amongst different company companies, a registered enterprise or workplace handle.

Paperwork from the Firms Registry in Hong Kong present that Zhang Shiwei is Soul friendship’s listed director.

Though they’ve totally different names and administrators, Soul friendship’s and Pleasure Timeline’s shareholders are the identical and there are a number of overlaps in how the 2 firms function. 

Like Pleasure Timeline, Soul friendship was registered with 100 shares issued at a complete worth of HK$100. In a mirror of the association for Pleasure Timeline, Zhang Shiwei, the director of Soul friendship, owns 90 of Soul friendship’s shares whereas Zhang Xiao, the director of Pleasure Timeline, owns 10 shares. 

Along with their widespread TCSP-linked handle in Wan Chai, each firms used the identical registered workplace handle in Kwun Tong, an industrial and enterprise space in Hong Kong, on their enterprise filings. That is the handle of one other TCSP, which serves as the corporate secretary for each of those companies.

Searches for Soul friendship and Pleasure Timeline on-line didn’t flip up a lot, besides web sites underneath their names that used similar templates. Neither web site talked about Crushmate or CrushAI, and each stated on their “About Us” web page that they had been based in 2022 and offered “IT consulting and software program improvement companies”. 

Wuhan Ruisen Zhuoxin Community Expertise 

To complicate issues even additional, Bellingcat discovered two US federal trademark functions filed for Crushmate by a mainland Chinese language firm, Wuhan Ruisen, in August 2024. The primary utility, within the class of “Promoting, Enterprise, and Retail Providers”, was rejected on the grounds that the corporate didn’t present adequate proof of utilizing the Crushmate mark in commerce. 

The second, in “Pc and Software program Merchandise and Electrical and Scientific Merchandise”, was formally registered with the trademark workplace on April 29, 2025. The paperwork filed for federal trademark functions are publicly accessible by means of america Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO)’s web site. 

Of their trademark functions, Wuhan Ruisen offered “specimens”, that are samples of how their trademark is utilized in commerce. These included screenshots of each Crushmate’s Google Play Retailer and Apple App Retailer listings – displaying LipLip staff and Soul friendship HK because the app builders – in addition to screenshots of their web site. 

John Halski, a US-based lawyer whose observe focuses on trademark and copyright, informed Bellingcat that it’s doable for an organization to incorporate samples or specimens of their trademark utility from a special firm by means of a 3rd social gathering licence. 

Nevertheless, Halski stated that whether or not a number of firm names in an utility could be questioned trusted the examiner.

“The [trademark] examiner has the discretion to ask: ‘You despatched me this specimen displaying that social gathering XYZ is utilizing it and also you declare that your title is ABC’. Then they could ask, ‘is that this underneath a licence association?’”

Anybody might file an utility for a trademark, whether or not or not they personal it, however different events might oppose the applying – equivalent to if they’re claiming to be the unique homeowners of the trademark – inside 30 days after it’s revealed. Wuhan Ruisen’s utility for the Crushmate trademark was revealed on March 11 this yr, and efficiently registered with out opposition on April 29.

The applying paperwork included a screenshot that appeared to point out a Stripe fee dashboard, with 4,563 profitable funds. The entire seen funds had been for US$9.99, which was the weekly price of a VIP subscription to Crushmate on the US website on the time the applying was submitted. 

Assuming the one funds recorded by the dashboard had been for these subscriptions, this could indicate that by the point of the applying being submitted in August final yr, Crushmate had earned at the least US$45,584.37 in subscriptions. It’s unclear what the precise timeframe captured by the screenshot of this dashboard was, though the applying states that the primary use of the trademark was Dec. 25, 2023. 

One other screengrab included within the utility, additionally apparently from Crushmate’s Stripe dashboard, confirmed a breakdown of the areas of Crushmate’s paying prospects. This view on Stripe’s dashboard shows the “tax thresholds” for every state within the US and reveals whether or not the revenue generated has reached taxable standing. The screengrab indicated that Crushmate had paying prospects throughout the US, with probably the most transactions from Kentucky and Utah. 

Primarily based on paperwork from China’s official enterprise registry which match the corporate’s title in Chinese language and handle, Wuhan Ruisen was established in March 2021 with a registered capital of 10 million Chinese language yuan (US$1.38 million). 

We aren’t naming the authorized consultant of Wuhan Ruisen, listed in these paperwork, as the precise relationship between this firm and CrushAI continues to be unclear. The authorized consultant’s title doesn’t seem on Soul friendship or Pleasure Timeline’s enterprise registration data in Hong Kong. 

A seek for the corporate’s title on China’s Web Content material Supplier licence database reveals that it registered for 5 totally different domains. Just one was accessible as of June. This website, which describes the Wuhan firm as a “skilled software program improvement firm” specializing in the event of desktop and cell software program, lists various apps supposedly developed by the corporate. Not one of the CrushAI apps had been amongst them.

A few of the apps on this web page have a detailed resemblance to software program by international builders. For instance, the primary app on the web page is an AI translator known as “DeepL”, which can also be the title of an AI translation app by a German startup that doesn’t at the moment provide paid plans in mainland China. 

On third-party shopper service platform Heimao Tousu, there have been greater than 40 complaints between October 2023 and March 2025 in regards to the firm. Most stated they paid between 29 and 69 yuan (US$4 to US$9.50) to obtain software program they believed to be real, solely to find the merchandise had been faux or didn’t work. Once they requested for refunds, they had been ignored.

Wuhan Ruisen didn’t reply to a number of emails requesting for remark, and once we known as the cellphone quantity listed on its web site, we obtained an automatic message stating that the quantity dialled was invalid.

Taking It Down

Crushmate’s X profile and a US area website carrying its title was accessible till April. That very same month, the US Take It Down Act, which criminalises the distribution of non-consensual deepfake pornography on the federal stage, handed. It was signed into regulation in Could, and Crushmate’s X profile was deleted someday that month. 

At time of publication, all 23 of the Crushmate domains, the extra nudify-related domains owned by Pleasure Timeline, and the opposite CrushAI domains look like both offline or show an “underneath upkeep” discover after customers register and log in. 

When Bellingcat reached out to a help electronic mail listed on a number of Crushmate web sites, an unnamed particular person responded. 

This individual stated the choice to close down operations and disband the staff truly happened “a number of months” earlier than the introduction of the Take It Down Act.

“Since then, this inbox has remained inactive,” they stated. 

The individual emailing us didn’t clarify why they had been replying from an inactive account, or reply to subsequent questions on who they had been or what their position in Crushmate or CrushAI was.

Pleasure Timeline has bought domains as just lately as Could 14, however none of those look like nudify websites or at the moment internet hosting content material.

---

Featured picture credit score: Reihaneh Golpayegani / Telling Tales / Licensed by CC-BY 4.0

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the flexibility to hold out our work relies on the sort help of particular person donors. If you need to help our work, you are able to do so right here. It’s also possible to subscribe to our Patreon channel right here. Subscribe to our Publication and observe us on Bluesky right here and Mastodon right here.