A woman is having steamy sex with her werewolf brother-in-law on TikTok while another gets pregnant by a dragon — and kids can see it all.
Welcome to the new era of AI-generated “microdramas,” where explicit, absurd soap opera slop invades the internet, including teens’ screens, with zero regulation.
These AI-generated clips come from China’s vertical short-drama (duanju) industry, an $14 billion operation that floods social media with addictive and often X-rated.
Key platforms include TikTok’s PineDrama along with major Chinese-based apps ReelShort and DramaBox, which feature romance and fantasy storylines with episodes lasting just 1 to 2 minutes.
When a user watches the entire “episode,” TikTok’s algorithm registers their attention as deep interest — and starts sending even more dragon smut in their feeds.
But unlike Netflix and YouTube, TikTok does not have a “kids” filter, which means this explicit and deceptive content can appear on any young person’s account. (TikTok’s minimum age requirement is just 13 years old.)
And there are millions of young people on TikTok.
Older teens aged 15-17 are the most popular age group on the app — they make up a reported 74% of its 1.6 billion monthly users — and about 58% are between 13 and 14.
That means accounts with vague names like @qwsa9fg can pump TikTok with hundreds of explicit AI micro-dramas, seemingly with no restrictions. Video captions then prompt users to download Shortmax, a Chinese-based microdrama platform.
Besides AI-generated videos with groping and fondling, there is also interpersonal violence. One video shows a man stabbing his girlfriend in the chest and slapping her across the face.
And because microdrama ads appear as organic content or as paid advertisements, the content shows up constantly, even when users try to block it.
Even more worrisome, these TikTok microdramas are often ads for AI content farms that “appear to enable or encourage nonconsensual sexual deepfake creation,” according to Alon Yamin, the CEO of the AI detection firm Copyleaks.
In other words, the fairy smut leads to a company that will produce real smut using photos of real people — even if those people haven’t consented to their image being used in simulated romance or even porn.
Yemin told The Post that Copyleaks has identified nearly 50 apps in Apple’s App Store that use AI to generate sexually explicit deepfakes.
An Apple spokesperson told The Post that Apple’s App Review team took action to remove the three apps cited in Copyleaks report from the App Store on July 29.
Apple told The Post that “nudification” apps are against their guidelines, and they work to reject and remove the apps when users have flagged them.
According to Copyleaks’ study, virtually all of these apps were promoted through TikTok ads.
“The ads were typically sexual in nature and featured examples of how the apps could be used to create graphic deepfakes,” the report stated.
One TikTok ad even led users to a website featuring “Hot Templates” for nonconsensual AI deepfakes, including a “Layer Off” option offering a range of undressing and sexualized photo templates.
Another TikTok series promoted a cure for erectile dysfunction that, upon clicking, led to deepfakes of celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone with explicit imagery.
Copyleaks noted that many of these apps block users from taking screenshots and screen recordings, making it harder for people to report online violations to the authorities.
The lack of safeguards means these advertisements are slipping onto screens of tweens.
“There is virtually no barrier to entry for these services anymore,” Yamin told The Post. “Our findings should concern anyone focused on digital safety and the spread of nonconsensual sexually explicit content online.”
Tessa Stucky, a parenting coach and mental health expert, told The Post that sexually explicit content can scar children well past the initial swipe.
“The online world doesn’t just stay online for them,” Stucky told The Post. “They carry it around in their mind and heart. They come to my office with anxiety, fear and sometimes shame.”
Besides feeling self-loathing and lingering shame for encountering content they didn’t choose to see, children can also receive distorted ideas about relationships and sex, according to Stucky. And physically, she regularly sees sleep problems in children who can’t get a video out of their head.
“I have all boys and I don’t want them seeing pornography… They can get interested in it and keep building their algorithm towards that,” Stucky said.
She added that young people exposed to pornographic content early can become so addicted that they’ll “ramp up” the content as they become desensitized. She fears that AI will make “ramped up” content more accessible, since AI actors can’t consent to any harmful storylines and tropes that are curated.
Her research shows that children exposed to sexual content can be more aggressive and violent in their future sexual experiences or suffer from erectile dysfunction when older.
The Post sent example videos of AI microdramas to TikTok for comment.
In an email, TikTok publicist Zachary Kizer responded, “After reviewing (the videos), we were unable to find these ads running on our platform — the examples shared appear to be user-uploaded content and a profile page.”
“Of the videos you referenced, one has been removed, and the remaining two have been labeled accordingly, limiting their distribution,” he said.
He also sent over advertising policies that state, “We prohibit paid-for advertising of content that is sexually explicit, suggestive or displaying nudity” and “We do not allow services that create content for sexual pleasure or sexual intention purposes.”
TikTok also said that “content flagged with warning labels for violent, graphic, or sensitive material is not eligible for recommendation in the For You feed.”
But experts like Yamin say this content can still appear in user algorithms if it’s not labeled correctly, or if AI programs can elude those tags.
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