CivitAI Strengthens Deepfake Regulations Amid Pressure from Mastercard and Visa

CivitAI, one of the most prominent AI model repositories on the internet, has recently made significant changes to its policies on NSFW content, particularly concerning celebrity LoRAs. These changes were spurred by pressure from payment facilitators MasterCard and Visa. Celebrity LoRAs, which are user-generated models that allow for the creation of AI-generated depictions of well-known individuals, have been a popular feature on the site, with hundreds or even thousands of such models available, predominantly featuring female subjects.

In a Twitch live-stream, CivitAI's Community Engagement Manager, Alasdair Nicoll, who is also a creator of SFW models, discussed the reasons behind these policy changes. Nicoll explained that the site was forced to comply due to concerns from payment processors about adult content and depictions of real people. He hinted that Visa and MasterCard might demand even stricter measures in the future:

**‘These are not changes we wanted to make. It's all about new and upcoming legislation. There are deepfake laws and AI porn laws that have payment processors, particularly Visa and MasterCard, worried about potential lawsuits, which is driving these changes.'**

**‘We were given other options, like removing all not-safe-for-work content, or moving x and triple-x content to a completely new platform with geo-blocking, given the regulations in over half of the US states, as well as many Asian countries and the UK...**

**‘Another option was to switch to crypto-only payments, but there were no good options for us.'**

Over the past few days, the CivitAI domain has experienced intermittent downtime as these changes were implemented. Previously, the site had banned NSFW themes in celebrity LoRA depictions, but now it's impossible to browse and see these celebrity LoRAs alongside the many generic NSFW models designed for mature content.

The official announcement clarifies:

**‘Content tagged with real person names (like “Tom Cruise”) or flagged as POI (real-person) resources will be hidden from feeds.'**

In the Twitch session, Nicoll elaborated on additional measures to protect famous figures and real people. While CivitAI has always allowed individuals to request the removal of AI models depicting them, Nicoll mentioned a new system designed to prevent such images from being re-uploaded, even if the system hasn't seen them before. To achieve this, the site is partnering with the Clavata AI moderation system, though the full extent of Clavata's involvement remains unclear.

Nicoll shared specific examples:

**‘Tom Hanks has claimed his likeness from us, for example. Many adult actresses and A-list actors have done the same...**

**‘The first person to do this was Barbara Eden, or rather her estate – which is amusing because she's quite elderly.'**

Protected by Default?

Over the past couple of years, the AI VFX company Metaphysic attempted to create a system allowing individuals to register their likeness, mainly aimed at Hollywood stars concerned about AI-based identity theft. Actors like Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, and Tom Hanks, who worked with Metaphysic on the film **Here** (2024), supported this initiative. However, with the rapid growth of deepfake laws and potential common law protections, the proposed subscription-based service from Metaphysic might become redundant. It's unclear whether Metaphysic's Pro offering will transfer to Double Negative VFX, which acquired Metaphysic's assets last year. Increasingly, global legislation and market pressures seem poised to offer more robust protection and remedies than commercial solutions.

Boiling the Frog

A 2023 report by 404 Media highlighted the prevalence of celebrity and porn AI models on CivitAI, though the site's founder, Justin Maier, downplayed the connection between these models and their use in generating pornographic content. Nicoll clarified that the primary concern for Visa and MasterCard isn't the generation of content but the hosting of these models:

**‘Some believe we're in this situation because we allow generation. That's not it. Simply hosting these models and content is enough to draw scrutiny.'**

Community discussions have long been surprised that CivitAI was allowed to host celebrity likenesses. In anticipation of a clampdown, several initiatives have emerged to preserve LoRAs, including the subreddit r/CivitaiArchives. While some suggest a torrent-based solution, no prominent domain has yet emerged, likely pushing banned content to the fringes of the internet, including the dark net, as platforms like Reddit and Discord are likely to follow suit in banning such content.

Currently, celebrity LoRAs at CivitAI are still visible but with restrictions, and most generated content has been de-listed to prevent casual discovery. One commenter in the Twitch session suggested that the crackdown might intensify, potentially banning all likenesses of real people in uploaded models or depictions. Nicoll agreed:

**‘They won't stop here; they'll keep demanding more and more – absolutely! The only hope is that we grow big enough to have more say in what's dictated to us...**

**‘Nobody's going to buy Bitcoin just to use the CivitAI generator. We've tried to make these changes as palatable as possible, but this is what we're left with. I apologize if this is unbearable for some, but it is what it is. We pushed back as much as we could, but ultimately, we were told this is it – do this or it's over...**

**‘These financial institutions don't understand what people are doing here. We've tried to explain, but we're practically the last bastion for NSFW content.'**

Nicoll mentioned that CivitAI reached out to numerous payment processors, even those typically serving high-risk sites like pornographic platforms, but all are wary of AI content:

**‘Even high-risk payment processors are cautious about AI content. If we were a traditional porn site, we'd be fine, but AI content is what scares them.'**

Where Next?

Before this announcement, CivitAI had already begun removing certain uploads. An 'emergency repository' for Wan 2.1 LoRAs has been set up on the Hugging Face website, including models that fall into the now-banned 'undress' category. Meanwhile, the subreddit r/datahoarders, known for preserving US government literature during Donald Trump's administration, has shown little interest in saving CivitAI content.

Despite CivitAI's facilitation of NSFW AI generation being noted in academic literature, such as the 2024 paper **Exploring the Use of Abusive Generative AI Models on Civitai**, the focus of payment processors is not on what's produced at CivitAI itself but on how these models are used in less-regulated communities.

The Mr. Deepfakes website, once synonymous with autoencoder-based NSFW deepfaking, now showcases celebrity-based pornographic videos using new text-to-video and image-to-video generators like Hunyuan Video and Wan 2.1, which are gaining traction and likely to generate controversy as their user bases expand.

Mandatory Metadata

Another change demanded by payment processors, according to Nicoll, is the inclusion of metadata in all images on the site. In typical workflows using platforms like ComfyUI, generated images contain metadata detailing the model used and various settings. This metadata allows users to recreate the generation process and address any missing dependencies. CivitAI has announced that any image or video lacking this data will be deleted within thirty days, though users can manually add it through the CivitAI website. Despite the evidentiary value of metadata, this requirement seems somewhat futile, as metadata can be easily copied or falsified.

Users with thousands of images on CivitAI now face the daunting task of manually annotating each one or deleting and re-uploading them with added metadata, which would reset any engagement metrics like 'likes' or 'buzz'.

The New Rules

• Content tagged with real individuals' names or identified as real-person resources will no longer appear in public feeds.
• Content with child/minor themes will be filtered out of feeds.
• X and XXX rated content lacking generation metadata will be hidden from public view and flagged with a warning, allowing the uploader to add the missing details. Such content will remain visible only to its creator until updated.
• Images created using the Bring Your Own Image (BYOI) feature must now apply at least 50% noise alteration during generation to prevent the creation of near-exact replicas. This rule does not apply to images created entirely on CivitAI or remixed from other CivitAI content, which can use any denoise level.
• When browsing with X or XXX content enabled, searches for celebrity names will return no results. Combining celebrity names with mature content remains prohibited.
• Advertisements will not appear on images or resources designed to replicate the appearance of real individuals.
• Tipping (Buzz) will be disabled for images or resources that depict real individuals.
• Models designed to replicate real people will not be eligible for Early Access, limiting monetization of celebrity or real-person likenesses.
• A 2257 Compliance Statement has been added to affirm that all explicit material on the platform is synthetic and not based on real photography or video.
• A new Content Removal Request page allows anyone to report abusive or illegal material without needing to log in. Registered users should use the built-in reporting tools on each post. This is separate from the existing form for requesting the removal of one's likeness from the platform.
• CivitAI has introduced a new moderation system through a partnership with Clavata, whose image analysis tools outperform previous solutions like Amazon Rekognition and Hive.

*Despite mention of Barbara Eden's ‘estate', the I Dream of Jeannie actress is still alive, currently aged 93.*
^†*Archived: https://archive.ph/tsMb0*

*First published Thursday, April 24, 202. Amended Thursday, April 24, 2025 14:32:28: corrected dates.*