Shocking allegations against Meta! Using porn videos to train AI?

Meta AI: The world-renowned tech company Meta (Facebook's parent company) is embroiled in a new controversy. Adult film studio Strike 3 Holdings has filed a major lawsuit against Meta, alleging that the company secretly downloaded thousands of pornographic films and used them to train its AI system. This claim has not only shocked the industry but also raised questions about whether AI companies are crossing ethical boundaries to obtain data.

Strike 3 Holdings' allegations and how the case began

According to reports, Strike 3 Holdings says it discovered its copyrighted adult videos being downloaded via the BitTorrent network from an IP address associated with Meta. The studio claims that this downloading began in 2018, before Meta had even formally launched its AI research projects.

The company alleges that these videos were used to train Meta's Movie Gen AI video generator and LLaMA language model. The studio has sought $350 million (approximately ₹2,900 crore) in damages and alleges that Meta conducted this operation through a secret network comprised of over 2,500 hidden IP addresses.

Meta says the allegations are baseless and false

Meta has completely denied all these allegations. The company says that Strike 3's lawsuit is baseless, absurd, and based on mere speculation. Meta has asked the US court to dismiss the case, stating that there is no evidence to prove that the company used any adult content in training its AI models.

A Meta spokesperson also stated that the company's Terms of Service clearly prohibits the use of pornographic or sexually explicit content in any company project.

Meta Shifts Responsibility to Employees

In its response, Meta also stated that even if such content was downloaded from a network, it was likely the work of an individual employee, not the company. Meta stated that it never permitted any employee to download such videos or use them for research.

Questions Raised on the Timeline

Meta states that Strike 3's claims are technically impossible because the company began its major AI projects in 2022, while the allegations date back to 2018. This timeline clearly demonstrates the weak foundation of the lawsuit.

At the same time, Strike 3 Holdings maintains that Meta used approximately 2,400 of its award-winning films to train models like Movie Gen. In response, Meta called the studio a copyright troll that makes false claims to extract large sums from its past cases.