Protesters target Apple at WWDC over nudify apps and CSAM claims
Protesters gathered at Apple Park as WWDC opened, demanding Apple remove nudify apps and stop hosting known child sexual abuse material in iCloud.
Protesters used Apple’s biggest developer stage to press a stark accusation: that the company sells a safe, premium ecosystem while still profiting from harmful content. Outside the Apple Park Visitor Center in Cupertino, activists gathered as WWDC began, pushing Apple to remove so-called nudify apps from the App Store and to pull known child sexual abuse material from iCloud.
Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference ran online from June 8 through June 12, with a special in-person event at Apple Park on June 8. The demonstration placed child safety at the center of a week that Apple typically uses to celebrate software, hardware and the tight control of its ecosystem. Instead, protesters turned the company’s own campus into a stage for a familiar challenge: whether Apple’s privacy branding leaves enough room for meaningful enforcement.
The criticism has sharpened since spring, when the Tech Transparency Project said it found 47 nudify apps in Apple’s App Store and 55 in Google Play. The group also said searches for terms like nudify could surface app-store ads and results, suggesting that the problem was not limited to obscure corners of the internet but embedded in the marketplaces that Apple and Google actively curate.
UltraViolet added pressure in May, leading a coalition of 54 organizations in a letter urging state and territory attorneys general to investigate Apple and Google over their role in platforming nudify apps. The coalition framed the issue as sexual deepfake abuse and argued that the platforms had not done enough to stop apps designed to strip images of clothing and exploit victims.
The protests also tied the App Store fight to Apple’s handling of child safety in iCloud. West Virginia sued Apple on February 19, 2026, alleging the company knowingly allowed iCloud to be used to store and distribute child sexual abuse material. The state’s attorney general said Apple had chosen to do nothing for years. Apple has defended its privacy-first approach, but it also abandoned a 2021 plan to scan iCloud photos for CSAM after backlash from privacy and security advocates.
The confrontation was not new. Activists also gathered outside Apple Park at WWDC 2024 to call for the return of child-safety features and to demand stronger action against child sexual abuse on Apple’s platforms. This year, the same unresolved clash met the company again at the center of its most visible public event.
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