AI-generated nudes in bio
None of these people exist, but you can spend money to see their NSFW photos on Patreon anyway
Adult content and spammy promotion methods have long gone hand-in-hand on the Internet, and using networks of mutually interacting accounts to boost the visibility of such material has been common on social media platforms for years. Recent advances in generative AI add a new wrinkle to the mix, as spammers can simply generate explicit photos and videos to their heart’s content, rather than going through the trouble and expense of filming actual humans. Here’s a look at a network of ten Patreon accounts with names such as “College Girls AI”, “Noble Ladies AI”, and “Mature Classy” that sell artificially-generated NSFW images, and promote themselves via astroturf networks on two social media platforms, Bluesky and X.
Each of the ten Patreon accounts has a corresponding account on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter). These accounts use the same AI-generated avatars as the Patreon accounts, which are linked on the X accounts’ profiles. Two of the accounts have their profile locations set: @AmbrosianGrace is allegedly located in Italy, while @MatureChicAI supposedly hails from Berlin. Interestingly, several of the accounts were created in 2015 or 2016, well before the generative AI technology presently employed by the network even existed.
It turns out that at least three of the X accounts in the network have been renamed. According to Wayback Machine archives, @AmbrosianGrace (permanent ID 1494416149051842568) was previously named @roundant_art, @MatureChicAI (permanent ID 1518514227576815616) was previously named @TopicVerse, and @MatureGlamourAI (permanent ID 4824454887) was previously named @SenzaSuonoMusic and @NFTexpertLab. Content posted by these accounts in 2022 is largely NFT-themed; older content from the account currently named @MatureGlamourAI indicates that it was likely a personal Twitter account at one point and may have been hacked or otherwise compromised.
Six of the spam accounts also have corresponding accounts on Bluesky. As with the X accounts, the Bluesky accounts use the same AI-generated avatars as the Patreon accounts, and have links to the Patreon accounts in their profiles. Bluesky has labeled some of the accounts’ posts and profile images as adult content and blurred their avatars and banners by default, as seen in the image above.
The accounts in this network primarily post AI-generated images of women, accompanied by emoji and large numbers of hashtags. The hashtags #AI, #AIart, #AIartwork, #fashion, and #onlyfans are present in almost every recent post, with other hashtags periodically peppered in. The posts also contain suggestions such as “Check the link in bio” or “Follow the link in bio”, directing viewers to the Patreon links where access to NSFW AI-generated content can be purchased.
Eight of the ten X accounts in this network regularly amplify one another’s AI-generated image posts, in an apparent attempt at artificially inflating engagement. This astroturfy amplification comes in the form of both reposts and likes, with the result that the majority of the interactions on any given image post from the network come from other accounts in the network. A similar story unfolds on Bluesky, where all six spam accounts engage with image posts from other accounts in the network. The only two accounts in the network that do not interact with the other accounts’ posts are the X accounts @ArtBeautiesAI and @FarmGirlsAI, both of which stopped posting in late 2023.
Every Bluesky account in the network follows most or all of the other Bluesky accounts in the network; similarly, each of the X accounts follows most or all of the other X accounts. (Since Bluesky and X are not federated with one another, cross-platform follows are impossible.) The Bluesky accounts have gotten minimal traction and have few or no followers outside of the other spam accounts. The network has achieved slightly more success on X, with most of the accounts having attained at least a few hundred followers, although it is difficult to tell how many of these followers are real accounts.
At least two of the Patreon accounts associated with the network, “College Girls AI” and “Mature Glamour”, have a small audience of paid members (a grand total of 16 between them). Since Patreon provides the option to hide membership statistics, it’s possible that some or all of the other eight accounts have paid subscribers as well. Unfortunately, none of the accounts display their revenue publicly, so it’s difficult to come up with a useful estimate of how much money this particular spam operation is bringing in.
