Testing conducted by The Guardian revealed that several prominent AI chatbots will remove hijabs from images of Muslim women when prompted, highlighting vulnerabilities in their content policies around religious imagery.
ChatGPT and xAI’s Grok both complied with requests to edit images and remove the Islamic head covering. Anthropic’s Claude declined, stating it would not alter photographs to remove someone’s hijab. Google’s Gemini initially resisted but produced images without hijabs when asked to make subjects appear more “western.” The findings emerged following an incident in which a French far-right politician distributed a digitally altered photograph of a Muslim woman with her hijab removed, paired with a caption about “French Liberty.”
Research from the Center for the Study of Organized Hate indicates that generative AI tools are increasingly being weaponized to create dehumanizing or sexualizing content targeting Muslim communities globally, particularly in regions with existing anti-Muslim sentiment. Similar patterns have been documented in the United States, where prominent Muslim female politicians have become targets of AI-generated harassment.
The responses from different platforms revealed inconsistencies in their policies. While some chatbots refused to remove clothing that would expose nudity, they applied different standards to religious head coverings. ChatGPT eventually acknowledged that removing a hijab “can be a meaningful violation of privacy or religious practice,” recognizing that exposing hair for hijab-wearing individuals carries religious significance. When tested with other religious garments including Sikh turbans and Catholic habits, the chatbots demonstrated similarly uneven enforcement.
Experts characterized the gaps in content moderation guidelines as enabling harassment. The de-veiling of Muslim women may not technically violate platform rules but remains harmful, according to researchers. The issue has broader implications, as separate incidents involving AI undressing tools have already prompted governmental investigations and restrictions across multiple countries.
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