The City also secures first judgment preventing website owner from operating sites that use AI-generated nonconsensual explicit images of real adults and minors
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (June 2, 2025) – San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced today that as a result of his ongoing lawsuit and investigation, Defendant Briver LLC has agreed to a permanent injunction prohibiting the company and its owners from operating any websites that create nonconsensual deepfake pornography. The company has also agreed to pay the City Attorney’s Office $100,000 in civil penalties. The City Attorney’s lawsuit alleges that Briver LLC operated two websites used to generate nonconsensual deepfakes.
The City Attorney’s lawsuit will proceed against the remaining Defendants, including new websites and owners identified in the amended complaint. The lawsuit alleges these website owners and operators violate state and federal laws prohibiting deepfake pornography, revenge pornography, and child pornography. As a result of the lawsuit and investigation, thus far 10 of the world’s most-visited websites that generate nonconsensual deepfake pornography are now offline or no longer accessible in California.
“While our lawsuit has so far led to an initial settlement as well as shut down 10 websites that exploit women and children, we won’t stop until all owners are held accountable and blocked from opening similar sites,” said City Attorney Chiu. “While generative AI holds enormous promise, these website operators are engaged in blatant sexual abuse and must be stopped. We are hopeful this first settlement permanently preventing Briver from operating these sites marks a trend for our remaining Defendants.”
Background
The availability of free, sophisticated, open-source AI models has allowed bad actors to exploit and further train and develop these models for their own purposes. Bad actors have now trained AI image generation models on pornographic images and child sexual abuse materials, so that they can be used to generate nude images of real, identifiable women and girls without their consent.
This disturbing phenomenon has impacted women and girls in California and beyond, causing immeasurable harm to everyone from Taylor Swift and Hollywood celebrities to high school and middle school students. For example, in February 2024, AI-generated nonconsensual nude images of 16 eighth-grade students were circulated among students at a California middle school.
These images, which are virtually indistinguishable from real photographs, are used to extort, bully, threaten, and humiliate women and girls. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also warned of an uptick in extortion schemes using nonconsensual AI-generated pornography. Worse yet, victims of nonconsensual deepfake pornography have found virtually no recourse or ability to control their own image after deepfake images have been distributed.
These websites offer user-friendly interfaces for uploading clothed images of real people to “undress” images of women and girls and generate realistic pornographic versions. The websites require users to subscribe or pay to generate nude images, profiting off of nonconsensual pornographic images of children and adults. Collectively, these sites have been visited hundreds of millions of times in the last year alone.
One defendant’s website specifically promotes the nonconsensual nature of the images, stating “Imagine wasting time taking her out on dates, when you can just use [website] to get her nudes.”
Some websites allow users to create nonconsensual pornographic images of adults only, but others allow users to create nonconsensual pornographic images of children. Before being shut down, the websites owned by Briver LLC allowed users to create nonconsensual pornographic images of both adults and children.
In August 2024, the City Attorney filed a lawsuit against the owners of the world’s 16 most-visited websites that invite users to create nonconsensual nude images of women and girls. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the People of the State of California, alleges violations of state and federal laws prohibiting deepfake pornography, image-based abuse, and child pornography, as well as violations of California’s Unfair Competition Law. The People seek the removal of Defendants’ websites as well as injunctive relief to permanently restrain Defendants from operating or creating similar websites. The lawsuit also seeks civil penalties and costs for bringing the lawsuit.
In March 2025, the City Attorney filed an amended complaint that identified the previously unknown defendants that own some of the world’s largest websites that generate nonconsensual deepfake pornography and identified additional websites operated by defendants. The remaining Defendants in the amended complaint include Sol Ecom, Inc., Itai Tech Ltd., Defirex OÜ, CodeBionic Labs OÜ, Augustin Gribinets, Artem Ashirbekov, Bakhadyr Ashirbekov, Richard Tang, and Gaofan Xu.
During investigation into these websites, certain domain registrars and registries were willing to cooperate with the City Attorney’s Office in taking down these sites. As of June 2, 2025, 10 of the most-visited websites that generate nonconsensual deepfake pornography are now offline or no longer accessible in California.
The stipulated judgment and permanent injunction with Defendant Briver LLC were approved by the San Francisco Superior Court on May 30, 2025. The settlement agreement requires Briver LLC to pay the City $100,000 in civil penalties and prevents them from operating websites that create nonconsensual deepfake pornography.
The case is People of the State of California v. Sol Ecom, Inc, et al., San Francisco Superior Court, Case No. CGC-24-617237.
Tips
Any person who has been the victim of nonconsensual deepfake pornography or has relevant information, is welcome and encouraged to contact the City Attorney’s Office through its consumer complaint web portal or hotline at (415) 554-3977.
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