How Makers of Nonconsensual AI Porn Make a Living on Patreon
Accounts that present as benign on Patreon are advertising thousands of nonconsensual AI porn images on Telegram.
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How Makers of Nonconsensual AI Porn Make a Living on Patreon
EMANUEL MAIBERG
·MAY 16, 2024 AT 10:37 AM
Accounts that present as benign on Patreon are advertising thousands of nonconsensual AI porn images on Telegram.
Over the past two weeks, a prolific creator of nonconsensual AI-generated porn named aesthetic illusions quit their day job because they’re making so much money selling subscriptions to access that content through Patreon.
“I have officially submitted my resignation to be effective for the end of June, and we can start working on upgrading to Stable Diffusion 2 (SDXL) while awaiting for the public open source access of SD3,” aesthetic illusions said in an email to their subscribers on May 13 with the subject line “BIG MOVES PEOPLE.” “If I said I wasn't slightly nauseous and shaky over making this move I'd be lying. In some ways (a lot of ways), my livelihood is in the hands of you as supporters, so not only do I appreciate your loyalty, I also kind of depend on it now!”
Patreon took down the aesthetic illusions Patreon page, as well as two other Patreon accounts selling nonconsensual AI-generated porn, after I reached out to the company for comment, meaning they are no longer able to make money from it. While it’s been reported several times that creators of nonconsensual deepfakes and AI-generated sexual images have used Patreon to monetize that content, and while we’ve seen Patreon remove these types of accounts multiple times before, aesthetic illusions is an example of how AI-generated nonconsensual porn makers are able to easily skirt moderation on Patreon and other platforms. They present a benign operation on the official Patreon page, but advertise the true, illicit nature of the service they’re providing off-platform, in spaces where internet users seek out nonconsensual pornography.
It appears that Patreon is unable to find people using its platform to monetize this abuse before they turn into sizable businesses, and until journalists flag them to Patreon.
“Thanks for the resounding support friends, the Full-Time Funding tier is quickly filling up, and soon we'll be able to see what I can do with all my attention toward the project,” aesthetic illusions wrote in an email to subscribers on May 1. The email, with the subject line “60% Funded!” came with an image of a thermometer filled up most of the way to visualize how close they were to this goal.
aesthetic illusions offered subscriptions for $10, $15, or $60 a month. Subscribers got a link to the file hosting site Mega, which contains dozens of folders, each named after a female celebrity. Each folder contains hundreds of fake pornographic images of that celebrity generated with Stable Diffusion. According to its Patreon page, aesthetic illusions creates more than 5,000 images a month and has made 53,190 images as of May. The Mega link, which contains 374.49 gigabytes worth of content overall, also contains several nonconsensual deepfake porn videos of celebrities.
Patreon’s guidelines have a section on what kinds of deepfakes aren’t allowed on the platform, including “deepfakes that incorporate an individual’s image or likeness in sexualized contexts in which they did not partake,” and “deepfakes that use a public figure’s image, likeness, or voice to deceive through misrepresentative or fraudulent product endorsements, promotions, phishing, financial scams, and merchandise sales, among others.”
Patreon currently allows adult content creators to offer subscriptions on its platform as long as all the explicit content is behind a paywall, is consensual, and does not depict “sexual activities.” Basically, nudity is allowed and hardcore pornography is not. On March 22, 2024, Patreon also updated its policy to specifically prohibit “Works that exclusively allow access to generators, tools, or software that use machine learning or AI technology to produce 18+ nudity or explicit imagery.”
aesthetic illusions’s official Patreon page barely hinted at the fact that it’s offering adult content, let alone nonconsensual adult content. It has an innocent logo of the page’s initials sprinkled with hearts, and the only three images on the page, one for each of the subscription tiers, are also entirely unrelated to the actual content it's producing: A book, a diamond, and a rocky desert landscape.
The text explaining what each of the tiers gives subscribers notes that some images are in 4K, that they are “tasteful SFW [safe for work] photo sets,” and include “Bonus SPICY Photos.” Images included with posts and updates are “Locked” and only available to subscribers. Paying subscribers will see risqué AI-generated images of celebrities in update posts to Patreon, but no actual nudity or porn, which aesthetic illusions provides only through the Mega link, seemingly to avoid Patreon’s moderation. As a “READ ME” file in the Mega link also explains, aesthetic illusions instructs subscribers to download and keep the link “so it is available offline to open at a later date. This is a contingency in the unlikely event in the future that Patreon disables my account.”
In a Telegram group with tens of thousands of people devoted to sharing and producing nonconsensual AI-generated porn, dozens of nonconsensual AI-generated images produced by aesthetic illusions are shared freely. I don’t know if the images are shared by the person behind aesthetic illusions themselves or if the images are reposted there by one of their subscribers, but the images are watermarked with the full URL to the aesthetic illusions Patreon page, so they serve as promotion either way.
Other nonconsensual and AI-generated porn makers who monetize that content on Patreon are directly advertising their work in these communities. A Patreon account called “AIUnivers.net,” which was also removed after I reached out to Patreon for comment, also doesn’t explicitly say it provides nonconsensual AI-generated porn, but says it offers “swap faces,” “image transformation,” and “uncensored image generation” via “SD [Stable Diffusion) 1.X and SDXL.” The Patreon page offers subscriptions at $10, $20, and $50, each with a different number of “credits” users can redeem to use the AI image generator. The header image for the Patreon page is a headless woman in lingerie. On Telegram, an account that is also named AI Univers advertises the Patreon page with AI-generated nonconsensual nude images of celebrities. The images are watermarked with the AI Univers name, and the Telegram user’s profile contains the AIUnivers.net link, which previously resolved to the Patreon page but at the time of writing timed out because of an error on the host’s end.
This method of presenting a benign official page on platform and advertising illicit services off platform is common in the AI-generated nonconsensual porn scene. We previously reported on seemingly innocent face swapping apps that were advertizing their ability to generate nonconsensual porn on deepfake porn sites and Instagram. Google and Apple removed the apps following our reporting, and Instagram removed the ads. Google also recently updated its policy to ban any ad that promotes AI-generated adult content, even if the ad itself isn’t explicit.
Not all Patreon pages that make nonconsensual porn are so subtle. Another Patreon page, Vigfakes, which was also removed after I reached out to Patreon for comment, offered subscriptions at $10, $25, and $50 a month. The description of what the different tiers offer make no mention of AI-generated or adult content, and there are no images of that nature on the Patreon page to people who aren’t subscribed, but different updates have titles like “Not O. Rodrigo fantasy nude pack,” in reference to the popular musician Olivia Rodrigo, and “Charli D Fantasy Nudes Pack,” in reference to the TikTok star Charli D'Amelio. On Telegram, Vigfakes shares watermarked images of their work, and their profile links directly to their Patreon.
In February, Bellingcat reported that some of the most popular “nudify” or “undress” apps monetized their services via Patreon, and that Patreon took down those accounts when it reached out for comment. In August 2023, Bloomberg reported on another “undress” app that made over $12,500 a month on Patreon. Patreon took down that account as well after Bloomberg reached out for comment.
Not all nonconsensual AI-generated content creators are making enough money from Patreon to make a living.
“Been Contemplating retiring recently, the interest in my work isnt what it used to be and on the business end of things,” Vigfakes wrote on their own Telegram channel in October of 2023. “Its mainly driven by the rise of AI fakes and oversaturating the market and easily pumping out fakes and i cant keep up with the AI users anymore which killed my faking business, if it wasnt for the premium group i would have quit a year ago.”
Vigfakes’s Telegram handle now notes that they are “semi-retired.”
This is in stark contrast to aesthetic illusions, who has sent multiple emails a day over the last couple of weeks, letting users know how much support they’re getting. On May 10, they sent a message to subscribers saying they are now getting enough money from Patreon to have bought a second powerful PC to generate images with. They shared an image of the new PC parts along with their cat.
“The safety of our community is paramount on Patreon,” a Patreon spokesperson told me in an email. “Alongside prohibiting pornography and access to AI-generation tools that produce sexually explicit images, Patreon has zero tolerance for works featuring non-consensual intimate imagery. We require any works involving permitted sexual expression to include an unambiguous indication of consent. We will remove accounts found to be in violation of our policies.
The spokesperson added that “Combining proactive detection measures, human moderators, and robust user reporting flows, we work to quickly enforce against accounts and works that put the safety and wellbeing of our community at risk. We also work with industry-leading reporting partners and law enforcement agencies, where appropriate. We will continue to update our guidelines and operational procedures to address new challenges and threats to our community.”
